


The Pimpernel

by rfsmiley



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, The Scarlet Pimpernel - All Media Types, The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Lovers, French Revolution, How Do I Tag, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Secret Identity, and then takes the tv canon home and does over-the-pants stuff with it, by which I mean it blows a kiss to the book, flagrant abuse of musical theater lyrics, flirts with both book and tv canons, same with the Scarlet Pimpernel, this blows a kiss to the book and film and then takes the musical home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23735920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rfsmiley/pseuds/rfsmiley
Summary: Aziraphale longs to know the identity of the elusive Scarlet Pimpernel, but Crowley, damn him, keeps getting in the way.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 290
Kudos: 273
Collections: Good Omens (Complete works)





	1. Carlton House

**Author's Note:**

> Eight weeks ago (so, in 2020 terms, about two years ago), [drawlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/drawlight) and I had a little conversation about the idea of a Scarlet Pimpernel / GO crossover. I want to be super clear that it was HIS idea – he was like, oh I’d love to see that done, basically – and it was so genius that it left me absolutely foaming at the MOUTH. He kindly agreed that I could steal the prompt, and so here we are two months (years) later with this. It is, of course, a gift for him, for his grace in this as in everything, and for the massive impact he’s had on my wonderful experience in the GO fandom. Draw, I very much hope you like it.
> 
> I also need to shout out a couple other people – [racketghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/racketghost/pseuds/racketghost), specifically, for being a diligent and hysterical beta, and for cheerleading me over the last month or more (I have usually tried not to start posting things until I have a complete draft, which meant that working on this, the longest thing I’ve written, would have been absolute torture without her support). Racket – thank you so much – it honestly would not be where it is without you (and of course any remaining errors are my own)! Also, thank you to [ineffably-effable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineffably_effable) for talking to me about plot!
> 
> I don’t have a concrete posting schedule yet, but I promise the fourth and final chapter will be up by May 1st, the 30th anniversary of the Good Omens novel. (But RF, you say, you’ve marked this as five chapters. Yes, I’m trying to decide if I’m going to do something embarrassing for chapter 5; if it goes back down to 4 you’ll know I decided not to.) If WIPs are not your thing, please come back on the 1st to see it in its entirety.
> 
> Lastly, apologies to Sir Percy Blakeney, who is a flawless literary character in his own right.
> 
> Stay safe, everyone. Into fire; onward ho!
> 
> *
> 
> edit 5/17/20: I don't know how to write this in a way that properly conveys my awe and excitement and humility but THE ART!!! I adore it SO MUCH! please give these [STUNNING](https://books-and-omens.tumblr.com/post/617735476616511488/a-different-french-revolution-crowley-for) [portraits](https://books-and-omens.tumblr.com/post/617502660693770240/for-redfacesmiley) or this [moodboard](https://antikate.tumblr.com/post/618398402231828480/the-pimpernel-by-redfacesmiley-is-just-the-most) love on tumblr or in the linked works!!!

“ _God bless the Scarlet Pimpernel, whoever he may be. Surely he must be an angel in disguise.”_

– _The Scarlet Pimpernel (film), 1982_

It was a lovely affair, if perhaps a bit immodest in its display of wealth. Aziraphale wondered vaguely whether he should feel more disapproval than he actually did – envy and pride were both sins, after all, and at this particular reception, the presence of both was as stifling as the heat – but some small, secret, hedonistic piece of him was luxuriating in its decadence. Well, perhaps his piety could look the other way tonight. After all, one could not help but be inflamed by these glittering chandeliers, these crystal flutes, the absolute flood of wilting yellow roses cascading from the staircase banister. The palette of silks and ribbons and jewels surrounding him was intended to inspire admiration, and so admire them he did. It was deserved. Humans did have such a capacity to create beautiful things.

The only problem was that he was noticeably out of place. There were somewhat less than fifty people gathered in the rooms of Carlton House – a humble gathering, by the standards of the upper echelons of London society – but he felt as though no matter where he chose to stand, he managed to put himself directly in someone else’s way. By the time the fourth woman turned and looked him up and down, as if to discover who dared to disturb the fall of her gown, Aziraphale was as discomfited as she was, and stumbled through an apology. She turned away before he had quite finished.

Irritated, he used his own power to suppress the flush that crept out from below his cravat. It was his own fault, he told himself. To attend something like this was shamelessly self-indulgent. He should leave this company and go home, and he would, very shortly, if he had any sense at all.

Sheer obstinacy, however, held him back. He had come this evening with a goal in mind, and he had not yet achieved it. To come so far, only to give up at the final hour, would likely be even more frustrating than this moment, hot and unsatisfied though he felt.

Locating a small dish of lemon sherbet in one of the less crowded rooms along the enfilade, he set about eating it, hoping it would cool his blood. This was also not a successful endeavor, although for a different reason; he still had the tiny spoon between his lips when a breath huffed laughter against his ear, sending a new warmth thrilling all the way down to his toes.

"Angel, how in the world,” a sleek voice purred in his ear, “do _you_ know the Prince of Wales?”

He knew that voice. He knew that voice better than that of anyone in the world by now. Swallowing his spoonful of ice, Aziraphale turned, preparing himself for the exchange of barbs that must inevitably follow – and then instantly forgot what he was going to say.

The opening shot, as it turned out, had required no words at all.

Crowley, for of course it was he, had set his hip against the long table of refreshments and was twinkling at him over the dark lenses of a lorgnette. Aziraphale could hardly meet his gaze; the yellow of those snakelike eyes, so rarely visible of late, were for once the least remarkable thing about him.

He looked the demon over with frank astonishment. For the first time that he could recall, his infernal counterpart had ditched his typical black attire; tonight, he was resplendent in a shimmering periwinkle suit, its jacket and waistcoat heavily embroidered with gold. Gold likewise tipped his cane and shone from the buckles of a pair of lilac pumps. His snowy wig was disproportionately large, almost extraordinarily effete, in fact, thanks to both the height and volume of its curls. A few of these, Aziraphale saw, had escaped the pompadour and lay demurely, clubbed at the nape of the neck, and dwarfed by the massive bow of a matching satin ribbon.

In short, in the time since they had last seen each other, Crowley had somehow blossomed into the most gilded lily in the hall.

It was vile. The more unfortunate thing was that it also looked extraordinarily good on him.

“I’ve rendered you speechless, I see,” said the demon, arching a sly brow.

At that, Aziraphale managed to get himself back under control, at least a little. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he retorted. “I’ve just never seen you looking so garish.”

“ ‘Garish,’” the other repeated, still smirking, and he lowered his glasses still further and let his eyes openly linger on Aziraphale’s clothing. “What an interesting choice of words.”

The angel was suddenly aware of the shabby state of his cuffs, the visible strain of his waistcoat. In this setting, his companion was simply the brightest diamond on a long strand of gems; his own attire was the example that was out of place. Even so, he crossed his arms defiantly.

“ ‘Ostentatious’ would have been just as suitable,” he snapped. “Or ‘excessive.’ Vanity is a _sin_ , you know.”

“Well, I should hope so,” said Crowley, grinning broadly at him. “Else I’ve wasted an evening of perfectly good wiling, and that would be a shame.” He indicated the entirety of the crowd. “Especially when this is some of my finest work.”

“Oh, please. You can’t take the credit for the extravagance of a private ball,” Aziraphale sniffed. Then he paused, and added, with sudden uncertainty, “can you?”

Instead of answering, his companion set his cane aside, selected a second spoon, and helped himself to a bite of the pale sherbet. Against his will, the angel found himself nearly hypnotized by the vision of wet silver against those red lips, a gleam that he knew would be sour and sweet together –

“I’ll answer your question if you answer mine,” Crowley said, dipping his spoon back into the dish. “Tell me how you know the Prince of Wales.”

Aziraphale recovered in time to make the necessary sidestep. “What makes you think that I know him?”

The demon waved his lorgnette at the crowd. “Because the guest list tonight is from a very specific roster, and I want to know how you got on it. You don’t strike me as the type.”

“You know, for all you know,” Aziraphale said, feeling cross, “His Highness and I might be very intimate friends.”

“Sure,” Crowley said coolly. “Except that the crowd tonight is comprised largely of men under suspicion of being the Scarlet Pimpernel.” Another mouthful of sherbet punctuated this statement. “And their lovely wives,” and at this, he actually licked a thumb, allowing the smallest glimpse of a tongue that was not exactly human – the wanton thing, oh, the promiscuous creature. Aziraphale wondered how much of this was orchestrated for the benefit of their fellow guests. “And I would wager any sum of money that you, angel, are not the gentleman in question.”

It took the angel a moment to realize what had been said. “The Pimpernel?” he breathed, turning fresh eyes on the crowd.

“Mm.”

This was a revelation so massive that Aziraphale hardly knew how to respond. All of England knew the stories by now; every person on the street, it seemed, was whispering how, across the narrow Channel, France had tipped full tilt into revolution in 1789 and then, over the course of the last few years, into something worse. It seemed that the _r_ _évolution française_ now thirsted for the blood of every upper-class man, woman, and child, and had not yet drunk its fill of the vintage. Thousands of people, some of them innocent of actual wrongdoing, had already been guillotined – except, of course, for those squirreled away by one brave and noble soul, known only as the Scarlet Pimpernel.

It was admittedly a strange sobriquet; on that much, at least, everyone was in total agreement. Pimpernels were hardy, vulgar plants, bearing only meager five-petaled blossoms, and were regarded in most parts of the country as a weed. There was nothing particularly remarkable about them, in sharp contrast to the person who had chosen the humble flower to be his name.

Remarkable, however, he had proven to be. Aziraphale did not know how any human could have achieved so much, all while keeping his identity a secret. He had already managed to get some hundreds of people out of Paris, and yet, somehow, the odd moniker was still the only thing that anyone knew about him. His name, age, and even eye color appeared to be closely guarded secrets. Even the people he had thus far saved, when pressed, discovered that they could only remember a detail or two about their savior. The entire affair was most uncanny, and, to no one’s surprise, the speculation about him had therefore run rampant, each subsequent tale more outlandish than the last.

He was a handsome vigilante. He was an undefeated swordsman. He was horribly rich. He was endowed with almost supernatural powers. He could appear in a locked cell, seize a young lady, and whisk her away to safety in a blinding flash of light. He could turn bullets into water and iron into tissue. As far as the angel could tell, not one single person seemed to know the truth.

The delightful thing, to Aziraphale’s mind, was the – well, the ineffability that this demonstrated, especially when neither he nor Heaven could take credit for such capers. The Host had been averse to interfering with human political movements, even prior to the disaster of nudging Henry VIII towards that lovely girl from Aragon. (In the aftermath, Aziraphale had only narrowly avoided official censure by offering up, albeit rather sheepishly, the establishment of the Anglican church.)

Today, this aversion was a formal policy stance, and the angel therefore obediently kept his distance. Even in the recent years of the American Revolution, he had not even gone to look, despite tantalizing rumors that tea was somehow involved. (Crowley, infuriatingly, had had no such restrictions and said that it had been fascinating to watch, though he got a bit evasive when asked about his role. He hemmed and hawed and muttered that the colonies’ guerrilla warfare tactics hadn’t _necessarily_ secured the victory against England, and they would have worked it out themselves eventually, and besides the technology was inherently neutral. Aziraphale tended to lose the thread after a while.)

The point was that Heaven’s increasing political abstinence didn’t matter. Humans persevered. In the darkest hours, when they were needed most, individuals such as the Pimpernel could pull off achievements that were genuinely just short of miraculous. Weary as he sometimes was of the bureaucratic red tape, Aziraphale felt rather strongly that God Herself must occasionally intervene firsthand, despite there being nothing official on the books. Some of the events he had witnessed had no other explanation. Why, he could remember –

“Don’t get too hot under the collar,” Crowley said, interrupting this reverie by rapping the angel on the knuckles. He grinned again when Aziraphale, irritated, yanked his hand away. “The Pimpernel likely has better things to do than swan around Carlton House looking posh.”

Curiosity warred against vexation, and won. “Gosh. Do you think he’s really here?”

“I never speculate,” said his companion loftily, and then he winked. “Although, if you really want to know, I have a hunch that he might drop in. To be polite.”

“I would – that is to say, I hope he does.” Aziraphale was already scanning the crowds. “I would very much like to meet him.”

Crowley _tsk_ ed softly. “Poor bugger’s got his work cut out for him already, without you mucking about trying to unmask him.”

“I _have_ heard the stories, you know.”

“Stories don’t really do it justice, I’m afraid. It’s a bloody mess over there, and I do mean that literally.”

The angel sniffed, still looking at the crowd of people. “As if cutting off heads in the public square was ever going to make anything better.”

“As charming an idea as that is, I don’t believe that the current administration’s goal is to make anything _better_ ,” said Crowley, and for once, he sounded unusually grim. “Hell doesn’t usually get involved with philanthropic movements.”

Open-mouthed, Aziraphale turned to stare at him. After a moment, he said, “Wait. Wait just a minute. Are you telling me that the entire situation in France is _your_ demonic work?”

Crowley looked back at him in silence. A muscle twitched briefly in his jaw, but when he finally spoke, his voice was as silky as ever. “No, unfortunately, not after that cock-up in the colonies. Thank you for the inquiry, but they’ve opened up the Continent as an internship opportunity, and as it turns out –” He shrugged. “Well. Hastur and Robespierre took a shine to one another, and that was that.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Yep.” Crowley tapped the spoon irritably against the table for a moment; he looked as if he’d rather be discussing something else. “Hastur thought he showed promise. Posed as a well-connected Duke, and, oh, my, one that just so happened to own a complete hand-lettered tome of all of the French noble families and their respective bloodlines. He offered it up in exchange for keeping his head.”

“A book?” said Aziraphale with real interest. “Was it a forgery?”

Crowley’s mouth thinned. “Does it matter?”

Chastened, the angel looked away. “No,” he murmured, “I suppose not.”

“Anyway, it sounds like messy work,” his companion went on, abruptly cheerful again, and he spread his arms for a moment, admiring his own elegant garb. “Congratulations to them both, I’m sure, but I _far_ prefer to not get that much blood on my clothes.”

Aziraphale, repulsed by such a display of callousness, tried to match it. “Surely you could just miracle it away.”

He could tell that he had caught the demon off-guard; he had been reaching for another spoonful of sherbet, but the words made him go still, doing his damnedest to conceal his surprise behind his dark glasses. “Ah, but I’d always know it was there,” he said at last. “Underneath.”

“Oh yes, I can see how that would ruin it,” said Aziraphale shortly. “The aesthetic.”

“Stop trying to be a wit, Aziraphale,” Crowley snapped, finally showing a flash of ire. “I don’t particularly want to talk about either clothes or the French Revolution with you, so just tell me. Why were you invited tonight?”

The angel fidgeted, looking down at his own attire. For the second time, he noticed that his cuffs really were rather threadbare. “About that. Well. If you must know – I – I wasn’t.”

Crowley dropped both the spoon and the lorgnette. “You _what?_ ” he demanded, his voice unusually high. “So what, you just – thought you’d drop into one of the most exclusive parties in the country without being noticed?”

“Carlton House is reputed to have a spectacular private library,” Aziraphale protested, rather bravely he felt, given that he was now laboring under the burden of a demon’s rising glee. “I thought – if I could slip in during an event and just look at it – I’m living in Soho-square just now, and I’ve been toying with opening a bookshop – _will_ you stop laughing – and of course I know that the collection isn’t for sale, but if the Prince was ever so inclined, I could – ”

The demon had fished out a twisted handkerchief and was holding it against his lips, as if it might stem the tide of his mirth. “I always knew you had it in you,” he said, when he could speak again. “Good for you. Do you know, I might actually call this kind of a housebreaking _sinful_ –”

“Oh, tosh,” said Aziraphale, irritated. “No one will ever even need to know I was here –”

“Mm, yes, unless they want to know where all the sherbet has gone –”

“That’s – but – you’ve eaten some of it too –”

“The Baronet, in the flesh!” said a voice, interrupting him. “Oh, Lord, sir, I did not realize you would be here. What an honor!”

They both turned. A small rotund little man, with a wig very nearly as spectacular as the demon's, bowed deeply to them – or rather, Aziraphale saw to his bafflement, to _Crowley,_ whose lorgnette was miraculously back in place, although the angel could not remember when he had stooped to pick it up.

“Baronet?” he said, blankly, to its lenses.

Crowley inclined his head, a small smile tugging on his lips. “The honor is mine,” he said, and extended a finely gloved hand. “Sir Digby, if I recall.”

“Yes, sir, Sir James Digby,” Digby blurted, shaking it effusively, and then keeping the hand clasped as he examined its cuff. “Oh, God in Heaven, sir, this stitching! These mother-of-pearl buttons! If I may be so bold, my dear, you have really outdone yourself this evening.”

 _My dear,_ Aziraphale thought, incredulous, and he could not identify the emotion that coiled within him like a snake.

“Have I?” Crowley was nearly purring. “I’m so glad you think so. I was called to assist the Prince with his toilette, and so, naturally, I took extra care with my own.”

“Oh, _sir._ ” The gentleman set his hand over his heart, and the angel saw with alarm that he was verging on congested. “It’s very noble of you, to continue to inseminate the love of well-tailored clothes among the peerage. I mean, my goodness, there are several men here who credit you with their entire _wardrobe_.”

Aziraphale was still working through his distaste for the appearance of the word _inseminate,_ which had come too soon on the heels of _my dear_ for his comfort, when Crowley spread his arms and performed a slow pirouette, showing off the cut of his attire. “La, for what other reason would I have come?” he inquired. “Someone has to bear the weight of well-tailored clothes, and I do honestly believe that that is why the Lord created men.”

This was such a sly sideways jab that the angel, feeling vexed, excused himself and left them to the discussion of spangles. He felt, rather than saw, the demon’s shielded eyes follow him as he passed into a different room, but he did not look back. Let the sort of company that Crowley’s foppishness drew be its own reward.

It took him a full minute to recover his composure; and then, with a start, he remembered Crowley’s revelatory statement about the guest list, and at once his attention turned to the faces of the other gentlemen present. Fresh delight coursed through him at the enchanting notion. Why, any one of the men in this very room might be the Scarlet Pimpernel himself!

Without hesitation, he set about trying to read their auras with his Grace. It was slow going, not unlike trying to divine the details of a coin at the bottom of a pool; the art of aura-reading usually only revealed overarching truths about a person, their vices or virtues lit in blazing color. Aziraphale had half-expected someone who was actually the heroic Pimpernel to be limned in gold, instantly visible, if one only bothered to look.

After half an hour, however, he had to admit defeat. No one in attendance appeared, on the surface, to be particularly unusual, except for, of course, the demon in their midst, who, like Aziraphale himself, radiated a color that was not of earthly hue, and therefore was not decipherable. He gave up, and drowned his vexation in a passing tray of champagne flutes.

Thank goodness, it had only been a distraction from his original purpose. As he finished the glass, the opportunity that he had been waiting for since his arrival unfurled as unexpectedly as a wildflower. One of the women began to play the pianoforte and to sing, in a soft sweet alto, drawing the attention of many of the guests. For the first time all evening, they began to congregate in a single room, the better to listen to her. Aziraphale, sharply conscious again of his desire to see the Carlton House library, encouraged them along with a nudge, and, hastily, using a second touch of power to avoid being noticed, he went up the grand central staircase and out of sight.

*

It was a glorious little room. Although it was smaller than the angel had anticipated, it was thick with riches, and he walked about, hands clasped behind his back, luxuriating in the collection. There were a number of political works – Smith, Locke, Rousseau, and Voltaire, to name a few – as well as some well-preserved Milton texts and a sheaf of something, neatly stacked in a box, that, upon inspection, were the curling pages of a Shakespearean folio. Awed, Aziraphale bent over it, breathing in the musty scent, deliberately not thinking of a time nearly two hundred years ago when Crowley had brought him a freshly inked sonnet as if it had been nothing at all.

“Congratulations,” said a voice. “You’ve found the most expensive thing in the library; rather quickly, I might add.”

He turned. In the doorway, a gentleman in a fine gray suit was watching him, with a very strange expression on his face.

“I beg your pardon,” Aziraphale said, with interest. “How expensive? And how exactly does that kind of a transaction happen?”

The stranger looked even more startled, and came fully into the room. “Are you – a collector?” he said at last.

“I am,” Aziraphale acknowledged. “But my pieces have all been in my possession for some time, unfortunately. And Shakespeare,” he gestured at the folio, “was always horribly stingy with these, as I recall. I have no idea how one goes about acquiring such things now.”

"New acquisitions are always possible,” said the stranger, sounding more and more bewildered, “if you can find yourself a competent dealer.”

The angel blinked. “It sounds like you have some experience.”

“Quite a lot. In fact, I should think that was obvious.”

“Oh, sir,” Aziraphale enthused, clasping his hands together. “What great good fortune, running into the exact person who could help me most. If you would be willing to give me any pointers in finding a –”

“My good sir, forgive me, but are you going to introduce yourself and explain what you’re doing in my house,” the man in gray said, interrupting him, his voice beginning to rise in his astonishment, “or are we going to stand here and talk about _book dealers?_ ”

“Ah, it seems I arrived just in time,” a third voice interjected hastily. “Please allow me, Sire, to introduce the debonair Mr. Fell.”

Aziraphale bit back a sigh; Crowley had appeared out of the blue a second time. The demon’s lithe form was no less breathtaking even in the dim light of the library, he noticed with resignation. He glared, trying to communicate that he was _just fine,_ thank you, but the lorgnette did not turn towards him as the demon went on. “I owe you the most abject of apologies, your Highness. He is, quite simply, here at my request.”

“ ‘ _Mr._ Fell,’” repeated the gentleman – who must, Aziraphale realized with a sudden little pang of mortification, be none other than the Prince of Wales himself. The displeasure of the royal figure was palpable as he turned to face Crowley. “My dear Baronet, I would love to hear a full explanation. As I recall, the invitation this evening was explicitly limited to a few select members of the House of Lords.”

“Ah, well, this is the trusted servant of a particularly prominent Lord, who unfortunately could not attend the ceremonies this evening,” Crowley said, as demure as a virgin bride, even as the angel felt the exertion he made to snuff out the reflexive query of _which one?_ He tried to take some comfort in scowling _very sternly_ at him. “But he does happen to be my particular friend.”

“A _servant,_ ” said the Prince, astonished.

“Oh, in name only, my Prince, I assure you,” Crowley said, in a tone of voice that was not dissimilar to groveling. “Those tawdry clothes are part of a ploy to deceive. They conceal a cunning political intellect.”

Aziraphale, unsure whether the final comment was intended to be a jab at him or not, nevertheless thought instantly of the Henry VIII disaster and flushed. The Prince, however, looked as though something had suddenly become clear to him.

“Ah,” he said. “I see.”

They were silent for a moment. The angel did not _see_ at all. For reasons that were a mystery to him, some unnamed tension had eased in the shadowy room, although the Prince was now studying Aziraphale’s face with an interest that he personally felt was unmerited. He cast his eyes to Crowley, who, even behind his dark glasses, looked as though he could not decide whether or not to be relieved.

“Please do accompany me to the entrance hall, angel,” he said to Aziraphale, and the Prince’s gaze sharpened at the use of the term. “I’ve prepared a short recitation for the occasion. I should hate for you to miss it.”

The angel hesitated. He wanted, rather badly, to stay in the library, but it was rapidly becoming clear even to him that he would not be permitted to do so. At his grudging acquiescence, Crowley ushered him away, although he glanced back once and saw the Prince unmoving, standing with his fingertips on the Shakespearean folio, and looking pensive in a way that made Aziraphale suddenly fearful.

*

“You know,” said Crowley conversationally, as they went back down the stairs, “you’re a bit out of practice.”

“Sorry?”

“At keeping a low profile. I seem to recall that you never needed rescuing in Rome, or Babylon –”

“I didn’t need _rescuing_ _,_ ” said Aziraphale, who was instantly affronted. “The idea!”

“Oh, yes, I have some nerve,” Crowley agreed. “But I’m not the one who just waltzed into the private library of the Prince of Wales without an alibi.”

“I _didn’t need one_ ,” Aziraphale said crossly. “I could have made him forget.”

“You could have.” Crowley set his lorgnette back over his eyes as they descended into the crowd of people, most of whom were clapping politely; the young lady playing the piano on the dais had just finished her final piece. “Or you could rely on the savvy of a clever demon and avoid raising Hell at a rather important party.”

They stood looking at each other for a moment; Crowley seemed to be expecting something, but Aziraphale had no idea what. At last, the demon snorted, and left him flummoxed by the banister, moving into a knot of guests, several of whom turned to greet him with recognition and delight. Really, the angel thought, this palpable celebrity was nearly as offensive as the idea of a _rescue._

“A lovely demonstration,” Crowley was saying to the girl, who was being congratulated by her friends. “May I interest you lovely ladies in a small piece of my own composition?”

There was a chorus of affirmation; someone inquired as to what it was.

“Oh, do let me be your standard-bearer, my dear,” Sir Digby called, elated, from the corner of the room. “He told me he might grace us with it. It's an original poem, about that clever swell, the Pimpernel!”

This caused a stir, and, at the insistence of the company, Crowley strolled up onto the dais and bowed. The room sighed as one, which was infuriating in spite of (or perhaps because of) being merited; he did cut an elegant leg, in those fine white stockings, not that Aziraphale would ever deign to notice such a thing.

“Thank you for my introduction, Digby,” he drawled, and then he extended a hand and began to declaim, in the most gratuitous style of oration that the angel could remember since Rome:

_They seek him here, they seek him there,_

_the Frenchies seek him everywhere._

_Is he in Heaven or is he in Hell?_

_That demned elusive Pimpernel._

Revolted, Aziraphale turned away. There had been some laughter and applause at the line about Heaven and Hell, which had been delivered in a particularly vile, bored, insolent voice, but which seemed directed at him personally - although, then again, it probably had been.

He found himself looking at the splendor of the house with fresh eyes. The decadence of it struck him anew, that saturation of sin that he himself had been so willing to overlook earlier in the evening simply because he himself had been enjoying it. Now, however, he saw plainly that this was no place for an angel.

Of course, a _demon,_ Aziraphale thought savagely, could saunter through this kind of a gathering and do exactly as he damned well pleased. He could doll up in frills and ribbons; he could seduce public figures into a lifestyle of indolence and indifference; he could “inseminate” whatever vile habits he chose and be rewarded for it _._

More to the point, he could muster the absolute gall to get up in front of a company of men, one of whom was reportedly the precious Pimpernel, and mock him to his face, even as his demonic colleagues helped to orchestrate the French bloodbath across the channel.

Impotent with rage, he eased himself out into the foyer and stood listening to the laughter behind him. Heaven and Hell had pitted their forces against each other for years, but for the first time, he had the strong impression that, by leaving politics alone, the Host had fallen behind in the sacred war. It had allowed the advancement of corrupt systems and of blithe participants, content to turn a blind eye to the wretchedness of the world. He should have recognized this night of extravagance, where no one bothered to talk about suffering except to mock it, for what it was.

It was _evil._

The inference was obvious. This was rapidly becoming Hell’s world, if it was not already. Not Heaven’s, and certainly not Aziraphale’s.

He had never despised Crowley more than he did in that moment. Five thousand years of meetings had led to a sort of wary familiarity between them, and a slow but steady tempering of his initial distrust; he had even come to rely, a bit, on that wry perspective, sometimes so dangerously close to his own private thoughts.

Now, however, standing there, in the empty foyer, he could scarcely believe his own foolishness.

“As if trusting a demon could ever lead to anything but grief!”


	2. The Bastille

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been a hard week to be in fandom. I have only ever experienced its kindness, but others have not been as fortunate. Cruelty, however, has consequences, and the internet is an extension of real people and real lives. And now here we are.
> 
> What to say about this fic in light of these events? The floral title seems particularly apt; it is truly only a pimpernel, compared to the rich garden that is gone. Furthermore, it was only ever conceived as a gift for someone, so if he had wished it, I would have absolutely broken my promise to y'all and let the final work continue to live only in his inbox. He did not want that. So. The promise will be kept.
> 
> As for the artist known as Drawlight, he is all right, and will continue to be so if his friends have anything to say about it. I suppose I shall be a Childermass for him and tell you that he has only gone where magicians used to go: behind the wind; on the other side of the rain.

“ _Go and find your husband. – You’re wrong, you know. I believe the poor sot loves you.”_

– _The Scarlet Pimpernel (musical), 1997_

In the days after the affair at Carlton House, the stories about the Scarlet Pimpernel somehow became even more exotic. It was almost as if, Aziraphale thought, they had taken their cue from the lavish evening, and been spurred to greater heights by its extravagance – and he might have been exasperated by it, too, but for the fact that he was as caught up in the fervor as every last man in London.

This was fortunate for him, since there was no escape from the rumors, not even in his own neighborhood of Soho-square. He learned this firsthand, to his mingled chagrin and pleasure, late one evening; having gone out for a stroll, thinking that he might idly look for a viable space to open a bookshop, he found that available real estate was all but nonexistent in the area (although, as he passed, a few shopkeepers looked up from their accounts with a sudden glaze in their eye, and an itch to sell the place in their fingertips). Gossip, however, was plentiful and intoxicating, and as he walked, conversations about the city’s darling flew so thick and fast around him that he had to employ a small miracle to track them all.

“The vicar says that he’s a disguised bishop –”

“An escaped convict –”

“– and my sister said that the Blakeneys’ family seal is a red pimpernel! Which proves –”

“Oh, my dear, she must be mistaken, because I heard from my footman that he’s Castillian –”

“Nonsense! He’s a maharajah! With a scarlet tiger!”

“They’re all wrong,” said a small girl, fiercely, but with certainty. “He’s a pirate. And you would know him if you saw him, because he _always_ carries several whips.”

“I beg your pardon – several whips?” said Aziraphale, astonished, turning to look at this last speaker, but the diminutive figure cast him a scornful look as she rounded the corner with her crowd of urchins, and she vanished rather than answer him.

He walked on, pensive, releasing his hold on the threads of conversation. Thus freed, his thoughts wheeled like kestrels and flew, far over stormy waters: the span of the English Channel, to be precise.

Even now, he mused. Even at this very instant, as London whispered and wondered, one lone determined soul was probably hard at work. Oblivious to the wild tales about his powers (or was he perhaps privately amused by them? Could the Pimpernel have a sense of humor? Aziraphale did not think this particularly likely), he was ushering frightened men and women through the alleys of Paris and the bowels of the Bastille. Shepherding them to greener pastures.

Saving them.

He wondered – oh, he wondered a lot of things. As he had reminisced at Carlton House, Heaven had only recently forestalled its ability to interfere in human politics, but even before that, its stratagems had not always been successful. Regardless of the lay of the chessboard, however, sometimes there were surprises during regime changes that seemed as though – dare he voice the thought? – as though God Herself had reached down her hand to rescue some pieces.

This seemed like a dangerously blasphemous idea, but then again, baffling escapes punctuated too many major events in human history for it to be otherwise.

Specific examples rose unbidden to his mind. In the immediate aftermath of the Great Flood, for example – and just after Aziraphale had diligently made his report on the survival of Noah and his sons – a vast raft had come ashore bearing at least a hundred grubby children, all clinging to each other and weeping. Upon examination, he could not understand how it had happened. The workmanship was shoddy enough that it never should have held together for the weeks at sea; there was also no indication of a food supply, and yet no child had gone hungry. It was a miracle, to Aziraphale’s mind, that far outstripped the paltry rainbow.

In 410, during the fall of Rome, a very similar thing happened. Out of respect, the soldiers had refrained from destroying the basilicas – which ended up being fortunate, because, weeks later, it was revealed that whole families had been instructed to hide themselves in various places in the holy sites. All had emerged well-fed and healthy, despite the fact that all of Italy was suffering from want of food.

In 1453, during the sack of Constantinople, the circumstances of escape were even more baffling. A mysterious fog had descended on that city in the weeks before its fall, and when it lifted (whispered the few survivors), a tunnel existed under the city when it had not previously. The narrow way provided an escape for a number of people – less than a thousand, true, which paled in comparison to the tens of thousands piled in the streets by June. And yet, the fact that anyone had been able to flee the besieged city at all was miraculous.

This had all the hallmarks of one of these sacred escapes. The difference was that he had never known the identity of any of Her glorious tools before – until now, when he and every pipsqueak on the street could tell you his chosen name.

The Scarlet Pimpernel.

What Aziraphale resented the most was that, even equipped with this crucial piece of information, his hands were technically tied. Heaven’s abstinence from political interference meant that he should not be anywhere near France at the moment. But he burned to know the identity of the savior in question, and as Crowley had said, such a person had better things to do than swan about London; he would be, of course, in the heart of the bloodbath, doing his blessed work.

Which meant that Aziraphale, despite his suspicions, would be left as ignorant as ever.

He sighed, and turned his wandering steps back home, towards his rented apartments – and then, as suddenly as a blow, an idea struck him, and he stopped in the middle of the street.

He could not seek out the Pimpernel, that much was obvious. But what if he could concoct a situation in which the Pimpernel sought _him?_

A coachman swore at him, and Aziraphale moved on, hardly hearing the profanity. He was lost in his private epiphany. Of course, this was the clear solution. He could pose as, oh, an English aristocrat, intent on meddling abroad. After all, he had just spent a lovely evening in the company of the Prince of Wales, and assorted members of the House of Lords; it couldn’t be too difficult to assume that sort of identity, surely?

Then, after his arrival in France, he could make a series of intentional missteps in order to put himself in danger’s way, only to be whisked back to safety by the Pimpernel. The fellow would reveal his identity at last – and maybe, just maybe, Aziraphale could get him to reveal what had inspired such heroism, too.

He thought he might already know the answer. A burning bush, a twig of olive; these were the usual missives. God moved in mysterious ways, regardless of what the official memos reported. But this time, Aziraphale wanted to be certain.

*

Selecting a disguise for his journey across the Channel turned out to be more complicated than he had imagined. Of course, he had to dress the part; but clothing oneself as a member of the peerage, it turned out, demanded a lot of investment.

This was further complicated by the fact that Aziraphale found that he, well, rather enjoyed it. It was surprisingly fun to sort through ribbons and lace, or to have one’s ruffled shoes polished and cravat flounced, and his list of errands began to multiply rather quickly. He consulted milliners and cobblers; he invited the inquiring hands of a tailor; he even employed the services of a butler, in the end, to help him with the final ensemble. It was delicious, to have all these attentions bent on nothing but his comfort, and he was enchanted by it all until his outfit was complete. Only then, as he turned to face the mirror, resplendent and rosy with pleasure, did the truth dawn on him.

He had attempted to imitate Crowley’s foppish style from the ball.

This did take the shine off the experience somewhat. But then, Aziraphale consoled himself: the demon need never know about it.

The rest of his plan required far less effort. Diverting unwanted attention was easy enough when he arrived in the port city of Calais (had the Pimpernel performed any rescues in Calais? He couldn’t be sure, and so therefore would not risk it), and as he went further inland, he slowly let the miracle fade. By the time he arrived in Paris, he had allowed it to dissipate completely, and discovered to his satisfaction that garnering the desired reaction was as simple as prodding a hive. Everywhere he went, the crowds looked at his froufrou and lace and began murmuring angrily to each other.

“An English spy,” someone pronounced at last, audibly, and Aziraphale made sure to look extremely shocked and aghast as they hauled him away, and suppressed his desire to laugh in their faces.

Once he had been locked away in the Bastille, however, he began to wonder if he had acted a bit rashly. The noises of the prison were haunting; one could hear weeping, for example, or shouting, even in the small hours of the morning. Aziraphale tried to be content with the subtlest possible miracles to ease their suffering, but it was not enough, could not be enough. He could not do more, though; he could not raze the stones to the grounds as he wanted to, listening to them. He was not supposed to be in France.

Equally frustrating was one particular guard who enjoyed his new opportunities for torment. Enchanted by his own importance, he told the angel repeatedly of his hatred of the aristocracy, of the hundreds who had died at his own hands, of his prowess in handling the rope of the terrible guillotine, and a thousand other wretched things that grew more inventive by the day. He was a champion, he said, of the people, and he was proud to help cut the weeds from the noble garden; he relished the bloody bouquets that he could offer to the women of Paris. He was an instrument of justice. It was the only work worth doing, any more.

Aziraphale, meeting his eyes calmly, did not reply. He had nothing to say. To tell the man that Hell itself had gotten involved with the revolution seemed almost irrelevant after such speeches.

Despite his reticence, however, the man did not let him alone. It was as if something in his soul sensed the presence of divinity, and despised it. He returned again and again to the angel's cell, sometimes even letting himself inside, to leer and tell tales of past abuses of prisoners, poor souls that they were. The angel patiently endured the gesticulating, and the shouting, and did his level best not to listen at all.

It was not a successful strategy. The fourth evening of his imprisonment made that much painfully clear. Sensing that he had not inspired the fear he had hoped for, the guard succumbed to a fit of fury and swore at him, striking him full across the face. It was a development that was unexpected, and unpleasant, and Aziraphale suffered a rare moment of real hatred. Slowly, he got to his feet, or at least he tried to get to his feet; the chains, having twisted in the fall, made it somewhat difficult. As he staggered, the man looked back at him with an answering rage.

No, Aziraphale realized. He wasn’t looking at him at all. He was looking past Aziraphale, to someone else in the cell with them.

“You again?” he said, furiously; and he went for his knife.

Then something happened that the angel did not understand. It was as if the guard had been struck himself, although no one had dealt him a blow. He folded up ever so gently, almost delicately, as one might tuck away a lace handkerchief, and drifted out of consciousness against the filthy wall.

 _You again,_ Aziraphale repeated to himself, baffled, looking down at him, and then, all at once, he knew who must be behind him. There was only one living person who could appear, more than once, in a Bastille cell, and inspire that kind of hatred in the eyes of a prison guard.

Elated, he turned – and then he made a noise of utter frustration.

He had been wrong.

It was not the gallant Scarlet Pimpernel at all.

Instead, an all-too-familiar demon was sprawled on the nearest available flat surface, clothed in an outfit that contrasted sharply with the vision he had presented at Carlton House, and looking back at him with a shock equal to his own.

“Oh, good Lord,” he said, irritated, looking over the languid figure. Somehow, it was if they’d had a second unspoken contest, and he had lost this one too. Crowley was no longer dressed like an English fop; instead, he was attired like a revolutionary, all in black, with the red rosette in his lapel. Even like this, however, his hair – his own lush scarlet hair, this time – was impeccably dressed, and the cut of the black cloth across his slim legs and groin left little to the imagination.

He looked – horribly dashing. It was awful.

“What the deuce are you doing here?” the demon demanded, in a tone of voice nearing outrage. He sounded as if _Aziraphale_ was the one interrupting an important endeavor – because, apparently, his insolence knew no bounds.

The angel had no answer to this. He had not been expecting to run into anyone who knew him for what he was – an ethereal being – and as he fished for an excuse, any excuse, none seemed to cover the arrival of an angel in revolutionary France. At last, he settled for something about pastries, which, thank goodness, seemed to be in character enough for him that Crowley swallowed it without question, although that did leave the remaining issue of why Aziraphale had suffered himself to be captured and locked up in the Bastille. Hopefully the demon wouldn’t inquire –

“But I thought you were opening a bookshop,” his companion went on dubiously, immediately lighting on the one thing Aziraphale had hoped he would ignore. “Why not just perform another miracle and go home?”

“Apparently, I’ve been performing too many frivolous miracles,” said the angel. He tried to sound pious, rather than like a holy entity that happened to be lying through its teeth. “I’ve been reprimanded. Erm. Got a strongly worded letter last week.”

Crowley’s lips twitched. “Mmm. You’re lucky I found myself in the area.”

 _Damn it all to hell._ “I suppose I am.”

Crowley lifted a finger; the iron shackles tore like paper and clanged to the floor. Aziraphale rubbed his wrists, chafed in more ways than one. “I suppose I should say thank you,” he said sulkily. “For the –” oh, what had Crowley called it, at Carlton House? “– the rescue.”

“Oh, don’t do _that_ ,” Crowley said, and there was just a bit of a bite in the way he said it. “What would the world be coming to, if angels went around thanking demons?”

“Well,” said Aziraphale, who did not really like this answer, although he couldn’t quite put his finger on why. He hesitated, glancing into the corners of the room, and then, with a sigh, reconciled himself to the turn of events. After all, the Scarlet Pimpernel was a busy fellow; he might not have ever visited this particular cell, out of the prison's hundreds. “What if I buy you lunch?”

The demon looked at him with an expression that Aziraphale could not altogether read. Then, pointedly, he looked at the angel’s clothes.

“Oh –” said Aziraphale, annoyed, and, snapping his fingers, he transformed the outfit into something closer to Crowley’s proletariat attire – before realizing, a second too late, that the miracle did not exactly align with his fib about how he had come to be locked in the Bastille. Clearing his throat, he mumbled a half-hearted excuse about what counted as an exertion of power, and then subsided, somewhat nervously.

Crowley, however, through some blessing, did not even seem to be listening. He was looking at the new outfit closely, examining the lapels and the cuffs, and then, satisfied, he nodded.

“It’ll do,” he said. “Sorry about your other togs, but they would have been asking for trouble. Y’know.” He waved a hand vaguely at the barred window. “Given the current state of affairs.”

“And I never go asking for trouble,” Aziraphale averred, and then, hastily, he changed the subject. “So. What would you say to some crepes?”

*

He had thought it a modest suggestion, but crepes turned out to be far too ambitious a goal, even for a being with celestial powers. He had cherished the hope that they could walk into a patisserie, even in the midst of a revolution, and find its menu intact, but this turned out to be foolish. Most of the places they passed were shuttered and dark. The lone place with lit windows turned out to be nothing so much as a filthy, impoverished cafe; worse yet, the lone woman who brought them water was adamant that there was no flour to be had anywhere in the city, and moreover, she had not made crepes since she was a girl.

“Oh, please _do_ look again,” Aziraphale implored, surreptitiously sending his power rummaging through an undiscovered cache in the nearby Tuileries Palace. “I’m sure there’s _some_ flour in the cupboard. Enough to feed two devoted revolutionaries, I’m certain.”

“ _Non,_ monsieur.” Her hands were on her hips. “No flour, no sugar.”

Aziraphale pursed his lips in concentration as she spoke. Unseen, a sack of sugar appeared in the cupboard, next to a crock of flour, fresh-laid eggs, and a small flask of real vanilla liqueur with a gold stopper – although, upon reflection, he thought he might have overdone it a little with that, and so he put it back.

“ _S_ _'il_ _vous_ _plaît, ma chérie,_ ” he said earnestly. “I beg you. Please go and check once more.”

She scowled at him, but a moment later, as the angel touched her lightly with a single celestial fingertip of power, she shivered all over and then abruptly agreed that perhaps she had some items, after all. Turning away from their table, she cast them a suspicious look – but the angel could feel that she had capitulated, and he looked, with no little satisfaction, at his companion.

Crowley, however, was looking very much as though he wanted to say something, or possibly as though he was suppressing a laugh.

“So,” he said, once the woman was out of earshot. “ ‘Frivolous miracles.’”

Aziraphale felt it happen at once. The sequence moved almost instantaneously through his earthly corporation: the release of adrenaline, the dilation of its capillaries, the hot blood abruptly flowering in his cheeks and ears. He could have suppressed it, of course, but Crowley would have seen that exertion just as easily, so there was no point. He might as well blush and be done with it.

Irritated, he took a sip of water, and now Crowley did laugh, leaning back in his chair.

“Well, well, well,” he said, almost admiringly. “You devious little liar.”

“Oh – as if you’ve never lied to me,” Aziraphale snapped.

“Only by omission, I assure you.”

Something about the way he said it, and the abruptly sideways set of his mouth, nearly brought Aziraphale up short, but he forced himself to parry and strike again, seeking his own hit. “I mean, really, my dear, we just established at Carlton House that you’ve told people that you’re a _baronet_.”

“I’m wounded by your lack of faith in me,” Crowley said, although the flash of his teeth indicated that he was anything but. “That wasn’t necessarily a fib, angel. I worked it out a while ago. If Hastur can self-style himself a Duke without an earthly dukedom, then it follows logically that anyone can lay claim to a title.”

“So you fancy yourself a Baronet of – of what? Hell?” Aziraphale was disdainful. “That’s gauche. Even for you.”

The grin widened. “Well. I may abdicate. You know, eventually. If the pressures of the peerage become too great.”

“How very noble of you.”

“I’m merely a humble public servant at heart,” said Crowley brightly. “Are you going to tell me what the devil you’re _actually_ doing in France?”

“I’m not always willing to disclose my agendas to you, you know,” Aziraphale said sharply. “That was never part of the Arrangement. ‘Assistance when convenient.’ That’s what we agreed to.”

He saw at once that this had struck deep enough to cut. Even with the tinted spectacles in place, anger flashed across the demon’s face, and something else too, something that might have been resignation, or weariness, or possibly even the revival of an ancient sorrow.

“Yes, I recall,” Crowley said. “You were quite clear about that, when you laid out that particular proposal.”

Anxiously, Aziraphale glanced around the room, as if someone might be listening. Of course no one was; the little cafe was still abandoned, except for the distant clatter of their hostess in the kitchen. Nevertheless…

“Let’s not discuss that in public,” he muttered.

Crowley adjusted his spectacles, and then leaned back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling. “Don’t worry, angel,” he said laconically. “I’ll keep your secrets.”

“Good,” said Aziraphale shortly. “Then I’ll keep yours.”

The demon’s mouth thinned at that, as if there was something about the sentiment that was funny, but he did not reply.

The crepes arrived at their table shortly after this. Crowley ate only sparingly, and then let the angel finish the shared plate. He seemed to be lost in thought, a distraction that kept him from real banter or conversation even after they had paid. He was so quiet, in fact, that Aziraphale felt uncomfortable. It was almost as if he had overstepped, somehow, in their usual back-and-forth, although he was not sure exactly how.

It was late by the time they made their way out to the labyrinthine streets of Paris. Beside him, the demon strolled without speaking, occasionally directing their steps towards the river, although if he had a destination in mind he did not mention it. Nervously, Aziraphale trailed after him, filling the silence, describing his plans for his bookshop, hoping it would thaw the sudden chill between them. His bankers were useless; he had not yet found a book dealer that he could tolerate; he had no idea how to replicate the kind of trove that he had witnessed during his, oh, what was that horrid phrase Crowley had used? His housebreaking?

But it was no use. Repeating the barb was the clearest concession he could make at his own expense, and still the demon offered him no returning volley. He felt as though he were perilously close to babbling.

A few minutes later, however, he became aware of their surroundings, and the rest of his words died on his tongue.

They had come to the wide open Place du Carrousel, the massive public square beside the Tuileries Palace. At this hour, it was empty of people, which somehow made the sight worse; there was only one thing to draw the eye.

In the very center of the arena stood a broad scaffold, and a contraption that seemed to loom in the darkness, its blade glittering in the moonlight.

“There she is,” said Crowley quietly. He had led them there, Aziraphale realized. His chosen path had been deliberate. “Madame Guillotine.”

The angel did not think he could speak. Far more ominous than the machine itself were the everyday flagstones under their feet, which would not have been noteworthy save for the fact that they were dark and discolored even at this distance. Blood, indeed more blood than he knew how to conceive of, had flowed freely even unto the perimeter of the public square.

Crowley had circled behind him, and he spoke, half-mockingly, directly into Aziraphale’s ear. "Oh, don't be so squeamish, angel. This is relatively tidy. You should have seen Constantinople in the fifteenth century."

“It’s terrible,” Aziraphale managed to say, after a few minutes.

He was aware of Crowley still pacing around him, examining him with an intensity that he did not understand. He did not want to look back at him, not here, not in this hellish place. Fresh in his mind’s eye was the memory of Carlton House, awash with splendor, and the demon up on the dais, laughing with the crowd over the cheek of the Scarlet Pimpernel, that lone saucy fellow who dared to interfere with the French beheadings.

He felt as though he might be sick. An utterly foreign human nausea was sweeping through him as Crowley came to stand beside him once more.

“I thought you might say,” the demon said at last, “that it was ineffable.”

Finding no safe place to rest his eyes in the Place du Carrousel, Aziraphale looked up at the stars instead. Above all these horrors, they shone cold and white as ever. Light only they provided, a constancy that he usually found comfort in, removed as they were from these visceral human sorrows. Tonight, they were no comfort at all.

The demon was still talking, somehow, in a casual tone, as if they were merely out for an evening walk in the park. “You did nearly say that word during the great Flood, as I recall. About the deaths of all those people.”

“Let’s not – please don’t,” he whispered, backing away from him, from the whole awful tableau. It felt as though the stones were tacky and wet under his feet, although he knew that was foolish, a trick of the mind; it had been hours, after all, since the final execution of the day. “Let’s not stay here, it feels –”

“Evil,” Crowley suggested coolly, following him.

Yes, Aziraphale thought. Yes. That was the word he had wanted; and he was reminded again of the sensation he had felt in the foyer of Carlton House, that pervading notion that it was rapidly becoming Hell’s world, if it was not already.

As they moved away from the square, however, he took a deep breath and made himself think of more pleasant things. After all, the Pimpernel had already saved hundreds from the maw of that terrible machine. Heaven might be absent from this scene, true, but God Herself might be hard at work, as She guided the hands of her chosen vessel.

Beside him, Crowley was quiet, lost in his own thoughts again, which was a relief. They walked another twenty minutes or so in silence, turning away from the Seine and towards narrower streets and alleys steeped in shadow. Aziraphale hardly saw them; he was turning over his long-held theory in his mind, those cherished instances of escape that had happened again and again.

And then, suddenly, he frowned.

“Crowley,” he began.

All at once, he felt the demon stiffen. Glancing at him, the angel thought that he looked more serpentine than usual; the angular jaw tilted this way and that, and the nostrils suddenly flared, as if his companion was scenting something. Then he wet his lips with that intricate tongue: once, twice. Aziraphale did not know what this meant, and so he carried on.

“A moment ago – did you say _Constantinople – ?_ ”

As quickly as the striking of a snake, Crowley clapped his hand over the angel’s mouth and dragged him back, out of the moonlight and into one of the dark alleys, just as two other figures turned onto their street.

For a moment they were frozen, partially entwined in the space behind a building, until Aziraphale’s curiosity and surprise got the better of him.

“Mmmf,” he said, pointedly.

Held like this, he could not see his captor’s face, but the short reply was enough to reveal that Crowley was, for the first time all evening, seriously alarmed.

“Demons.”

Aziraphale considered this for a moment. Then he made a soft noise of inquiry.

“Can’t be sure,” said Crowley curtly. “Hastur, I think, from the smell of him. I don’t know the other one.”

They listened for a moment in a tense silence. The two newcomers were arguing in French, and their raised voices were drawing nearer and nearer to the mouth of the alley. Aziraphale could see their shadows, now, stretching across the cobblestones, spiky and strange in a way that human shadows never were.

Then the dark shapes grew still. One of them said something, in a different tone of voice: a question. Aziraphale did not recognize most of the words, but he heard the word _ange?_ and sensed Crowley’s instant fear.

The hand across his mouth was slackening, and Aziraphale managed to whisper against the fingers, “Really, my dear.” He stopped: _my dear?_ Had he acquired that from that odious little fellow at the ball, or ...? “They’re on your side. You’ve nothing to fear from them.”

“Oh, sure, right, of course,” his own demon snarled in his ear. “A very pissed-off Hell that keeps getting the slip from its prisoners, sounds reasonable, I’m sure they’re completely neutered and not dangerous _at all_ – especially when, by their timetable, I’m supposed to be back in America –”

For the first time, it occurred to Aziraphale that he had not actually asked what _Crowley_ was doing in the Bastille. He opened his mouth, but Crowley was still ranting: “ _–_ not to mention finding a fucking _angel,_ here, in Paris _–”_

Aziraphale still did not understand. He wanted to say a number of things; that he wasn’t helpless; that Crowley was overreacting; and that, surely, two demons wouldn’t pick a fight with the Guardian of the Eastern Gate, especially when he had done absolutely nothing to provoke them. But, just as he opened his mouth, the shadows began moving, with deliberate purpose, towards their alley, and Crowley tightened his grip and hauled him further into the darkness.

“Fuck, oh _fuck,_ " he hissed. If Aziraphale turned his head, he could see the stricken face, just barely. “Oh, we are in such deep shit.”

“Crowley,” the angel said, muffled but no less bewildered. “ _Why?_ ”

“Isn’t it obvious?” his companion whispered.

Aziraphale hoped his expression was answer enough.

“ _Aziraphale._ ” Crowley was clearly exasperated, even in the midst of his fear. “They're going to think you're the Scarlet Pimpernel.”

At once, all was clear. He was in real danger after all. A bystander angel might have little to fear, but a potential celestial saboteur was a threat.

"But I'm not," he said weakly, against the palm.

"Of course you're not," the demon snapped, and took his hand away. And then he paused.

It happened in an instant; Aziraphale did not see it, but rather felt it, the sudden snag in the turning of the world. On another plane of reality, the creature of darkness that held him hissed softly and then lashed out, a silent strike, hooking a talon into the soft tulle of time. To the angel’s astonishment, it did not tear, although all the threads went abruptly taut with the strain of trying to stay intact.

Wide-eyed, he looked up at Crowley, and though he felt his lips part in shock he could not think what to say. All around them, the night had become perfectly still, including the twin figures of the demons themselves, frozen where they had been about to turn into the alley.

As if freed from the constraints of linear time, things seemed to happen all at once, after that –

– Crowley kissed him, once, savagely, on the mouth –

– and snarled in his ear, “Get out of here – can’t you see that this is no place for an angel –” before shoving him away –

– and as Aziraphale stumbled back, stunned, he had a fleeting impression of Crowley turning on his heel and striding towards the intruders, as if to head them off.

He did not hesitate. He fled.

It was strange, but, afterwards, he could not get straight in his own mind which piece of the tangle had frightened him more. Had it been the looming shadows of the approaching demons? The horrible straining feeling of Time itself, struggling to get loose from the claws of a demon?

He rather worried that it was the detail that he seemed to remember with the most clarity: the way said demon had tasted, as hot and sweet and tempting as sugared crepes.


	3. Kensington Palace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your kind words.
> 
> I haven't a clue where this canon ball actually takes place, so I'm renting Lord Grenville the Kensington Palace for the relevant decade. A quick Google doesn't contradict me. Forgive the liberty.
> 
> One chapter to go!

_She loved him still… she had never ceased to love him… deep down in her heart she had always vaguely felt that his foolish inanities, his empty laugh, his lazy nonchalance were nothing but a mask[.]_

– _The Scarlet Pimpernel (book), 1905_

Aziraphale had much better things to do than think about being kissed by a demon, thank you very much, and he very nearly did them, too.

Upon his return to London, he received word that several properties had opened up unexpectedly in Soho-square, and he could have his pick of them for the bookshop. A solicitor had offered his services in acquiring property rights. His bankers regretted very much that there had been an error in the bookkeeping, causing a delay in the requested draft, but sent their regards for the unflagging patience and patronage of their clients.

Aziraphale sat, with all of this correspondence open on his table, and gazed out of the window. He felt listless. He did not particularly want to go out and shop for real estate at the moment, or speak to lawyers or bankers. Under the current circumstances, he wished fervently that he had never begun the undertaking of opening a bookshop at all.

What he _wanted_ was an explanation of why Crowley was in France. He wanted to know what had happened, that evening, after he had fled from the alley. He wanted to know why – why certain other events had happened, before he had. In short, he wanted answers to the questions that had plagued him for the last ten days.

Why _had_ Crowley been at the Bastille? Was it possible that he was hunting for the Pimpernel too? On Hell’s orders perhaps? Or to satisfy his own private curiosity?

It would not be the first time that they had been at cross-purposes. Representing Heaven and Hell on Earth meant that the two of them had used to suffer such frustrations almost constantly, although more had been professional than personal. Between the two of them, they had invented the stalemate long before chess, in a game that had gone on and on beyond reason. It was not that either of them lacked patience; really, Aziraphale defied anyone to do better in his shoes. The real miracle was that he had lasted as long as he had before the frustration had finally worn him down, somewhere around 1020 A.D.

Remembering the dinner, of course, still caused him acute embarrassment, especially the memory of the way Crowley had looked back at him, his expression unreadable behind the dark lenses he had only recently taken to wearing.

He had said, very carefully, “You're asking me to perform – miracles. For you.”

“Yes, I suppose you could call it that,” Aziraphale had replied, equally guarded, and when no answer was forthcoming, he had hurried on, embarrassed. “And you know, I could reciprocate sometimes. Nothing too unsavory, of course.”

"Of course," Crowley had said silkily.

“Just assistance when convenient.” He had taken a fortifying sip of wine, drawn in a deep breath. “There’s no need for one of us to go out of his way.”

“Wouldn’t dream of imposing.”

“Maybe it will be fun for you,” Aziraphale had offered, without much hope. “The variety. You know. Doing something good for a change.”

He had made himself stop then, had made himself wait for an answer. Crowley’s face had still shown nothing of his thoughts, but at length he had dipped a finger into his goblet and idly drawn a pentagram on the table. “I’m a demon, Aziraphale,” he had said, in a tone of voice that was unusually serious. “We don’t do that kind of thing. Ever. As a rule.”

“Yes, I know,” Aziraphale had said, humiliated. “Look, I – oh, it was a foolish thought. I’m sorry. We needn’t discuss it again.”

Crowley had kept fiddling with the wine. Under his questing finger, the five points of the pentagram had softened, begun to round into something new. It looked a bit like a rudimentary flower. Aziraphale, who was still on tenterhooks, had not paid it much attention.

“All right,” the demon had said at last. “I’m in.”

Remembering this exchange now, over seven centuries later, Aziraphale frowned. The way Crowley had fidgeted, and the long delay before his reply, still bothered him. It had been as though he had wanted to say something else, but lacked the nerve, and so some critical detail had gone omitted, or at least unspoken.

But the deep embarrassment of broaching such a topic had been worth it. They, at long last, had stopped getting in each other’s way.

Until last week, when Crowley had been very much in the way.

Intimately, in fact.

He caught himself touching a thumb to his lips, biting against the knuckle absently as he wondered. Disgusted with himself, he turned it into a brisk snap that produced a pen and an inkwell, and a sheaf of yellowing paper. The letter closest to him was the solicitor’s; he opened it, reread it, and made himself begin to compose a reply. Damn Crowley, he told himself, as he dipped the nib (although, he allowed a moment later, perhaps no more than usual). He had no time for demons. He had a great deal of things to be getting on with.

Even with this dramatic show of discipline, however, it was not one of his more productive mornings. He wrote three letters and was satisfied with none of them. Addresses would not stick in his mind, nor could he conceive of how much human money he would need on hand to launch something like a bookshop. At length, he balled all of the papers up, and took a clean sheet from the stack, and gazed out of the window again.

At last, he wrote a name that belonged to neither his banker nor his solicitor, and a short paragraph after that, and reached for the sealing wax.

He was not sure what he expected in return. An equally short note, perhaps, or an embossed card. Something brief; something formal.

What the letter actually brought him was a summons to Carlton House.

*

The manservant who answered the door looked at him as though he would, on the whole, prefer to grant admission to a cockroach, which the angel of the Lord felt was rather unfair. Admittedly, he did not really look like someone who should be permitted into the residence of the Prince of Wales, but this was by his own design. After dithering over what to wear, he had settled on the same dingy clothes he had worn the last time, on the evening when he had been caught in the library, thinking that at least it would show consistency.

Lacking the stealth he had previously employed to gain entry, however, it was clearly failing to impress the gatekeeper.

“Servant's entrance, if you please, sir.”

“Ah,” said Aziraphale, and he held up the note with an ingratiating smile. “I think you’ll find that I’m expected.”

“That may be true, but there en’t been a revolution in England just yet, at least that I’m aware,” said the manservant, sounding bored. “Servant’s entrance.”

“But the Prince –”

“Belongs to polite society, sir, and that society has rules.” The manservant looked fixedly past him. “Servant’s entrance.”

“Could you at least go and let the Prince know that I’ve arrived?” the angel said. He was beginning to bridle under that expression. “That is, if you even know who I am?”

“You’re a friend of the Baronet, and for that reason you’ll find a welcome under this roof,” said the manservant, which was, impressively, the single most exasperating answer he might have chosen. “But I think you’ll discover that whether you can get that far, Mr. Fell, depends on whether or not you can find the _servant’s entrance_.”

Well. Suffice it to say that it was not the reception he had hoped for.

He tried not to sulk as he was shown into the drawing room. The Prince of Wales was sitting at a writing desk, his pen flying; he did not even glance up as Aziraphale came in. The angel waited for a while, and then, feeling awkward, he went to sit in one of the armchairs – but, from his place by the mantel, the manservant’s face was so stricken with horror at this display of familiarity that he straightened again, and put his hands behind his back.

“Mr. Fell,” said the Prince, without looking at him. “I was very interested to receive your correspondence.”

Aziraphale floundered. Some sort of apology was clearly anticipated by that cold address, but he was so ignorant of contemporary etiquette that he wasn’t sure of his exact transgression. “It’s an honor to be invited back into your home, Your Highness,” he said eventually, “but I think we may have had a miscommunication, for which I am very sorry. When I inquired after the name of your book dealer, I in no way meant to usurp –”

“Please excuse us, Winsborough,” said the Prince, still writing busily, and the manservant bowed and departed.

Aziraphale stammered himself into silence. In the sudden hush, the Prince set his pen down and regarded him impassively for a minute; and then he stood up, and came uncomfortably near, peering into the angel’s eyes as though searching for something.

At length, he said, “Were you aware that Lord Grenville is hosting a ball this evening?”

His guest wondered where he had gone wrong. This was not, in his limited experience, the appropriate human reaction to an apology. “Is he?” he said weakly.

“Yes, he is. At Kensington Palace.” Those hazel eyes were still boring into him. “The guest list is expansive. Every chap with a family crest will be in attendance, and so will a large number of foreign dignitaries, all of whom likely have a good deal of gossip. However,” he added, significantly, “very little of that tends to be said within earshot of a Prince.”

“Terribly inconvenient,” said Aziraphale, who was now at even more of a loss. He had only written to ask about _books._

“Yes, I would call it that,” said the Prince, still looking at him intently. “You see, I had intended to invite the Baronet as my guest, but it seems that tonight he is indisposed.”

This proclamation was – startling. Crowley had alluded to some sort of intimacy with the Prince on the evening they had met here, but the angel would not have guessed that it was so Roman as to permit them to swan into formal events together. The feeling that had blazed up within when that fellow Digby had used the phrase _my dear_ was back in full force, searing through him like a sword on fire.

“And then,” said the Prince, leaning closer, unaware of the sudden dislike he had inspired. He held up a folded piece of paper between two fingers. The angel instantly recognized it, for the writing was, after all, his own. “A path becomes clear. One of his _particular friends_ contacts me in an hour of need. Someone else who understands the need for discretion… which means that the obvious alternative,” and, enigmatically, he dropped his voice, “is you. The mysterious _a_ _ngel_.”

Aziraphale jerked back from him as if stung. As if he had confirmed something, the Prince’s lips twitched. “It is a much simpler _nom de guerre,_ I’ll grant you,” he said softly. “An avenging one, I have no doubt. Yes?”

Staring back at him, the avenging angel found that he had been rendered momentarily speechless. The turn of the conversation had left him flabbergasted, as neither the French phrase nor that slight knowing smile made any sense to him at all. Over the last five-thousand-odd years, the few humans who had even begun to guess at his unusual nature had been frightened, or repentant, or obsequious. Yet somehow, he had been named "angel" by a man who was looking at him with simple compassion, and something else too, something strangely close to pity.

“Forgive me, Your Highness,” he said at last, “but I don’t – that is –”

“Yes, of course,” said the Prince at once. He turned away, and cast the folded letter into the hearth. “If anyone inquires, we shall simply call it a business transaction. Your companionship this evening, in exchange for the name of my – what was it? My book dealer? And perhaps the first printed copy of _Paradise Lost_ into the bargain, as a token of gratitude.”

This was an offer that no bibliophile could refuse, and so, even though Aziraphale was clearly not keeping up with events, he assented without question. It made the Prince smile again.

“Excellent,” he said. “And now: preparations. Can you disguise yourself as a gentleman?”

“Yes,” said Aziraphale immediately. In his mind’s eye, he saw Crowley lounging in the Bastille, giving his wealthy attire a pointed glare. “Oh, yes, I certainly can.”

“Good. Will you be recognized tonight, if you do so?”

“No, Your Highness.”

The Prince reached for a silken bell-pull. A moment later, the manservant reappeared in the doorway, giving Aziraphale a look that was, if not outright chilly, at least meritorious of a light jacket and gloves.

“Two suits from the cherry wardrobe, Winsborough. The navy, and I think perhaps the powder blue. Full dress.”

Needless to say, the hours that followed were some of the oddest of Aziraphale’s life. Oh, true, he had been dressed impeccably for his journey across the Channel, but that had felt like a personal, private girding of arms, his secret purpose doing much to excuse the indulgence in his own mind. To be pampered by a host of royal servants, in the lavish chambers of the Welsh heir, with the Prince himself calling out for his opinions from behind a gilt screen, and furthermore with no destination but a party? To – what was it? Listen to gossip? Was that really all?

He felt as though he had missed something critical, but the task at hand demanded too much attention for him to dwell on it. The suit was generously cut, so the borrowed waistcoat fit, but the royal figure was a good deal taller than the angel's, meaning that a series of subtle miracles were required to shorten the sleeves and trousers. It was delicate work to try to do, he discovered, while also giving intelligible answers about the merits of sock garters. In the end, he was not even sure what he had said.

It was fully evening by the time he turned to the mirror. In the reflection, a fair-haired gentleman looked back at him with open shock, so unrecognizable that he might have been a different person entirely. His clothing was a good deal humbler than his French attire, lacking nearly all of its frills and lace, but their absence seemed to flatter him in a way he had never dreamed of. He was neatly buttoned; crisply pressed; luminous at the throat, where his cravat billowed starchy and white; and a bit intimidating to view full in the face, he saw to his amazement, for the immaculate fabric had transformed his eyes into a frankly celestial blue.

“Well done, Fell,” said the Prince, coming into the room, adjusting his cravat. “We’ll make a respectable bookseller of you yet.”

He was not quite jovial, Aziraphale thought, but his mood had definitely improved. A mild self-satisfaction radiated from him as he regarded the angel in the mirror, as though he had just found the solution to a particularly treacherous riddle. His complacency, in fact, lasted the length of the carriage ride to Kensington, even though he made an effort to engage in more pedestrian discussions, and even answer some questions about his book collection.

When the coach stopped at last, however, their conversation died away. Curiously, Aziraphale twitched aside the curtain, looking out at the line of carriages approaching the lavish residence, and felt an odd excitement rise in him. Given its proximity to Soho-square, he had seen this particular estate before, even on nights like this when it was ablaze with light and thronged with people. But human palaces were generally not the dominion of angels. Over the long arc of human history, he had only ever entered them for professional reasons, or in the case of Carlton House, for the sake of a hobby.

He had never been explicitly invited before.

“Are you certain of your task?” said the Prince beside him.

“Listen to gossip,” said the angel, who was still distracted by the view. “And then I report to you.”

“Good,” said the Prince, closing his eyes briefly as the carriage lurched forward. “And now for a word of caution. I am not certain of the extent of our peril. Given the guest list this evening, I would be particularly discreet about your connections to the peerage.”

“What?” said Aziraphale, not listening.

“The Baronet,” the Prince said mildly. “And the unique nature of your relationship.”

As he let the curtain fall, the angel looked back at him without comprehension – and then, all at once, the insanity of his current situation began to make a little more sense.

“Wait,” he said. “Wait. Has he been spreading that I – ? But surely he wouldn’t – I can’t believe – Of all the nerve – that he would even dare to – _he_ was the one who – oh, for God’s sake, it was _one time_ , and I gave him no encouragement at all, it was a liberty I allowed him in a moment of _great dures_ _s!_ It’s not as though we’re _lovers!_ ”

The Prince had opened his eyes and was staring back at him with an equally nonplussed expression. Aziraphale paused. “Er,” he said, and then remembered to add the honorific. “Your Highness.”

There was a moment of silence.

Then, suddenly, the royal figure contorted in a burst of laughter, which he barely managed to stifle a little into the palm of one white calf-gloved hand. The force of him trying to suppress it seemed to rattle the carriage.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, in a strangled voice, when he had recovered. “Oh, Mr. Fell, I do very much beg your pardon. I seem to have made a grievous error.”

Aziraphale was still quivering, whether with fury or fear he could not tell, but under the amusement of those hazel eyes, he came slowly to the same realization: his flash of understanding had not been correct after all.

“Ah,” he said.

“Yes,” the Prince agreed. The corners of his mouth were twitching furiously, visible even in the shadows of the coach.

Aziraphale sat back and sulked. The Prince took a few more minutes to get himself under control, wiping at his eyes with a handkerchief; he was trying very hard to look as though he was not in the throes of a powerful mirth, and failing.

“All right,” he said, when he could speak normally again. “And so. The truth is less noble than I had supposed. You are not in league with him at all. You are merely genuinely interested in my book collection, and the Baronet is … oh, what shall we call it? Genuinely interested in _you._ ” He paused, but the so-called avenging angel was brilliant with mortification and did not answer. He nodded to himself. “Well, fortunately for you both, a life at court has left me moderately adept at keeping secrets.” He laughed again before he could stop himself. “Despite this rather close-shaven miss.”

“How very lovely for you,” said Aziraphale venomously, needled into waspishness.

The Prince huffed something that began as a chuckle, but faded, rather rapidly, into a sigh, as he looked out at Kensington Palace. Their carriage was only just pulling up to the front of the queue. “My only regret is that I had hoped you would be useful to me this evening,” he said. “But it seems I required the Baronet after all.”

In his mind’s eye, Aziraphale saw Crowley, the glittering golden eyes, the scarlet hair, the slanted dour smile. Against his will, he remembered how it had felt, to be held by those strong and spindly hands. “I’m sure he regrets the inconvenience to you,” he snapped, still curt in his embarrassment. “But then again, he does have so many important demands on his time.”

The Prince looked at him closely. Then he observed, in a quieter voice, “For what it’s worth, I am sorry that you love him. It must bring you a world of unhappiness.”

This was so astonishing that for a moment, Aziraphale could only stare back at him.

“Thank you, Your Highness,” he said at last, “but I don’t.”

“Of course,” said his companion smoothly, in a conciliatory way that reminded the angel powerfully of Crowley, and he opened the carriage door and stepped out into the night.

*

It was much less pleasant than the night at Carlton House. Aziraphale blamed, among other things, the sheer number of people; in contrast to the few dozen at the Welsh estate, Kensington Palace seemed to be trying to house more members of the peerage than could possibly exist in the whole of the British empire. Nor was the guest list so limited; there seemed to be as many foreign emissaries and visiting diplomats as actual Englishmen. Worse yet, the noise was deafening, and it stank of perfume, and although faint string music could be heard beneath the thunder of a hundred conversations, Aziraphale could not discover which room the orchestra had been buried in.

Standing a little apart from one of the knots of people, inasmuch as that was possible, he tried to master his irritation but found it difficult. Even apart from his humiliation in the carriage, the night had no redeeming qualities. There was no sensual promise of a private library; there was no sherbet; there was no Crowley, resplendent in silks, waving a lorgnette imperiously and teasing him about nothing in particular (and the angel flatly refused think about what it would be like to have him here, and whether they might have arranged to meet upstairs, or in the cellars, to steal time for a conversation alone).

Feeling resentful, he blessed the wine into a finer vintage than it was. At least he could have a drink before he departed, he thought; although a cup of red was not enough to justify his brashness in coming here, or writing that letter, or revealing the fact that Crowley had kissed him to a stranger.

His one consolation was that here, as everywhere in the city of London, the banter eventually turned towards one of the few topics that he still cared about.

“Forgive me for my lack of enthusiasm. I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you, but the Pimpernel is hardly the darling of Paris,” a heavy French accent was saying, and Aziraphale moved until he could see the speaker: a figure dressed all in black, dark and sallow, with gaunt cheekbones. “We have enough to worry about without dealing with someone who fancies himself above the law.”

“Run you a merry chase, has he, Chauvelin?” said someone near him, giving him a friendly jab in the ribs, to the Frenchman’s visible distaste.

“ ‘Merry’ is perhaps the wrong term,” he growled, jerking away and straightening his coat, as though the touch alone had managed to ruin his attire. “I will admit that Robespierre’s displeasure has been acute.”

This caused some smothered amusement among his neighbors. One of them actually dared to laugh outright. “I usually refrain from casting political aspersions, but really, my dear ambassador, you make it almost too easy,” he commented, chortling. “The idea that Robespierre is worried about one single meddling Englishman doesn’t say much about your –”

“Allow me to disabuse you of that misplaced patriotism,” Chauvelin interjected coldly, still fussing with the lay of his lapels. “I’m not sure where the notion came from, but the Scarlet Pimpernel is not English.”

A good deal of murmuring greeted this pronouncement, and one of the men nearest to Aziraphale looked particularly satisfied. “I’ve heard this one,” he whispered to his wife. “He’s a pirate, that’s why. They say he’s renounced the King.”

“Furthermore, I doubt very much that he is working alone,” the French ambassador went on. "It is far more likely that he has at least one accomplice."

“Oh, I quite agree,” said a woman at once. Her hair, black as a crow, had been swept up in an elegant arc to follow the curve of a bird’s wing, the feathers fanned out and nestled among the jewels. “He must have a whole score of people working for him, surely? To have achieved so much?”

“ ‘The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel,’” suggested the man who had laughed, and he dissolved into mirth again. “Assuming that anyone could bear to be associated with a foolish name like that!”

Behind him, Aziraphale was frowning. Something about the imagined phrasing prickled against his skin, like a burr in the collar. He had no time to ponder it, however, for the conversation was already going on.

“It’s such a wildly fanciful moniker, isn’t it? Why choose something so floral?”

“Perhaps it’s symbolism.”

“But then what does it signify?”

“And why do they call him _scarlet_?” said the lady with the bird’s wing in her coiffure, the one who had first aired the topic of a league.

“Perhaps he led a former life as a scarlet woman,” said a man near her, someone who Aziraphale thought must be her husband, which caused a burst of riotous laughter.

“You shouldn’t make light of something so serious,” snarled an older gentleman. The angel internally applauded him, hoping that he would come to the hero’s defense, but a moment later his hopes were dashed as the man made the sign of the cross and hissed, “ _I_ heard that they call him that because he’s a savage. Bathes in the blood of the Frenchmen as it runs in the gutters, he does.”

“A demon,” someone else suggested, and Chauvelin, who was looking increasingly disgusted with his company, let out a disparaging snort.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said curtly. “It’s because his hair is scarlet, and somehow, that one fact is all that anyone can recall about him afterwards.”

Aziraphale felt as though the polished Calacatta marble floor, which had been firm under the heels of his boots only a moment ago, had suddenly dropped away. He stumbled a little, just as the dark-haired woman said, “I beg your pardon – do you mean to say that he has red hair? How decadent.”

“He’s bluffing, my darling,” said her husband dismissively. “He can’t possibly know that for certain.”

“Or perhaps,” the Frenchman said, in a soft and deadly tone, “our new government is more competent than you imagine.”

He looked suddenly beakish, Aziraphale noticed; his eyes glittered with dark fire. He looked like nothing so much as a falcon in the dive.

No one else seemed to share this insight; the statement was met with derision and nothing more. “Oh, yes, I’m sure you have him nearly in your grasp,” said another gentleman, hooting with mirth. “Any day now, you’ll be able to pluck that rascally primrose and get back to running the country.”

Amid the laughter that followed, Chauvelin excused himself. Aziraphale watched him weave his way to the other end of the room, where two double doors led out to an airy balcony. And then he followed.

He closed the French doors behind them, so that they were standing alone. Chauvelin, who was gripping the railing tightly, drawing in deep, steadying breaths of the cool air, paid him no attention at all, which was just as well: for, behind him, Aziraphale was, very quietly, taking off his gloves.

“Forgive me,” he said, either to Chauvelin or to God; he wasn’t certain. “I am about to take an extraordinary liberty.”

Turning, the man raked him once with his eyes and said, “If this is a bid for my attention, either personal or political, you should know that I am not inclined to –”

The sentence was never finished. The angel snapped his fingers, and the man’s face went slack at once.

*

“He will be in the harbor city of Calais tomorrow morning,” Chauvelin was saying. Aziraphale had drawn him up against the railing, as far from the door as possible so that no one could overhear them, and kept his hands fisted in the black lapels as he made his confession. “He is going to escape to England in a skiff with a white keel. There is a red flower inked under the prow.”

“Tell me who he is,” Aziraphale hissed, resisting the urge to shake him. “ _Tell me._ ”

The face remained blank. “I am not certain yet.”

“But you suspect someone!”

“Yes,” said Chauvelin, staring past him with eyes that were glassy and dark. “A confidante of Robespierre has led us to him. He is a Baronet, neither French nor English. I do not know his country of origin, nor his real name.” And then, with a sudden flash of venom: “But it does not matter. I will be back in Paris within the fortnight, and under my knife he will tell me all.”

“I doubt that very much,” said Aziraphale coldly, drawing him closer still. “I do not think I shall suffer you to torture him.”

Chauvelin made no response to this, although he shivered once as the angel, much as he had done with the Parisian waitress, pushed a single tendril of power into him. He was instantly revolted by the corruption that it found: oily, dark, ubiquitous. This was a man who had caused many people a good deal of suffering, that much was plain. Impulse flooded his mouth like iron, for, here, helpless in the grip of celestial power, the valves of that blackened heart could easily be stilled.

But things were far worse than he had thought. “A confidante of Robespierre” was a terrifying phrase; surely that could be no one but Hastur, that so-called Duke of Hell. If he thought he knew the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel, then killing one Frenchman in Kensington Palace would do nothing, nothing at all, to protect – that individual, whoever he might be (no, no, he could not think about it yet; the mind rebelled, the body trembled).

He tried to decide what to do. If Heaven got word that he had been involved in a human murder, there would be paperwork, and possibly punishment; it was not worth the risk. There were too many other things to take care of first.

At last, his impotence turning sour in his mouth, he settled for something milder, wiping as much of the bloodlust from the man’s soul as he could before releasing him. It was the most overtly political thing he had ever done, but he found that he didn’t much care. The risk of an audit was nothing, nothing at all, to letting him go unscathed.

Chauvelin blinked, slowly, as if awakening from a dream, and gave the angel a baffled look.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Were we discussing something?”

Aziraphale’s hands felt sticky and foul. It was as if, by touching this human’s spirit on another plane, he had immersed them in gore. Repulsed, he rubbed them together, attempting to dispel the sensation. “Nothing very interesting, I’m afraid,” he said coldly.

They looked at each other for a moment, and then Chauvelin bowed, and left him alone on the balcony.

Aziraphale turned and looked up at the stars, as cold and clear in the sky above London as they had been above the Place du Carrousel, and tried very hard not to remember that night, or permit himself to think about its possible significance.

But of course he could not help himself. Memories came flooding through him, transporting him back to the library of Carlton House, the streets of Paris, the clammy cells of the Bastille. In his mind’s eye, he saw those shining masses of scarlet hair, set into paper curls, matching the scarlet rosette of the Revolution set in the lapel – and all at once the thought refused to be buried any longer.

_Crowley was the Pimpernel._

No. No, he was being ridiculous. It could not be Crowley. Of course it could not be Crowley. He was a demon. The Revolution was the pet project of his coworker; he was a bystander, a fop, a foil, not a dashing saboteur. And, and – he grasped at this in desperation – hadn’t the Prince said that he was indisposed this evening, not gallivanting around the French coast?

So there you had it. There were other redheaded Baronets in the world, there must be. There was no reason to think that Crowley was the one under suspicion.

But he needed confirmation.

He turned and pushed his way blindly into the crowds, looking for one particular aura. It was an infuriating task; there were at least two ballrooms open for dancing, and an enormous landing at the top of the stair that turned out to be hiding the clandestine orchestra, although now Aziraphale did not have the leisure to listen to them.

He forged onward, frustrated. How were there so many people in a single building? How were there so many people in all of London? Humans had eagerly gone forth and multiplied, but it was very clear that they had not known when to stop.

At last, thank God – always assuming She was even paying attention any more – he stumbled across the Prince, standing in an antechamber that was blessedly free of all but a small group of admirers. He was examining an oil portrait of the King, with a crystal glass of claret in his fine gloved hand. He did not turn as Aziraphale approached, although the group of tittering young women did, evaluating the newcomer. The angel banished them with a glare.

“Sir,” he said, “Your Highness.” He was aware that he was out of breath; his corporation had not often felt real terror. Apparently, it reacted to its presence poorly. “I must speak with you.”

The Prince still did not look at him, but he exhaled, slowly, and looked into the garnet depths of his wine. “If you have news this urgent,” he said, “I think that perhaps you have met Monsieur Chauvelin.”

“I met a monster,” said Aziraphale, surprising himself with his vehemence, “who happens to go by that name. But, your Highness, he – he says that he knows –” He could hardly get the sentence out. He did not want to be wrong; he did not want to be right. He did not know what he wanted.

“Tell me.”

To say it was a struggle. He glanced around the empty little room, and lowered his voice. “He believes that the French government knows the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel.”

“I suspected as much,” said the man gravely. “And do you?”

The angel stared at him, feeling his mouth shape words that would not come. It seemed to be a sort of answer, for the Prince glanced at him as sharply as if he had spoken. “I see,” he said, and then he sighed, and finished his wine.

He looked tired, Aziraphale realized; he looked almost like a child, clinging to the driftwood of the diplomacy required by his office, powerless to help as the rest of the world drowned around him. But no, that was too close to thoughts of the Great Flood for comfort; and the angel could not bring himself to think of that event, not right now, not here, not yet, or he would weep.

“Very well,” said the Prince, not marking the sudden spike in his distress. “We shall have to get word to him. He must simply lie low for a while.”

Aziraphale wanted to shake him. “Your Highness,” he said, trying to convey the urgency, the agony of his mounting fear, “they believe that they can _prove it_. They think that they know where he is tonight.” _Tell me again that the Baronet is indisposed. Tell me he is safe._

The hazel eyes turned back to meet his with dawning horror.

“But,” the Prince said, slowly, “tonight the Baronet is in France.”

It was like being shot. The angel put a gloved hand to his mouth. All around him, things began to darken, even as the distant noise of the ball roared at once into a horrible buzzing.

_Crowley was the Pimpernel._

“Oh my God,” he breathed, not caring if She actually heard him. “ _He_ _is._ ”

The two of them stared at each other, and then the Prince must have finally seen something of the angel’s nausea in his face, for he set his glass aside, and reached out to grasp Aziraphale’s forearm. It was a firm, reviving grip, the sort of thing that a soldier might have done to strengthen a comrade for battle, and unexpected enough that it cut through the ice of his horror to warm him, rouse him.

The gesture was unprecedented, Aziraphale realized, as he looked down at the hand. People merely wanted the benediction of angels. They did not fight alongside them, or befriend them, or console them in their turn. That kind of intimacy was something that Heaven did not permit, and Heaven was, after all, infallible –

Did he believe that?

Images swam before him: rainbows, Rome, the ravenous blade of the guillotine. He could not answer himself. He found that he was no longer certain.

He drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and the Prince released him, and turned away.

“Go then,” he said curtly. “Save him if you can.”

If he said anything else after that, Aziraphale did not hear it, for he was already gone.


	4. The Port of Calais

“ _For my money, the really big one will be all of Us against all of Them.”_

– _Good Omens (book), 1990_

It is not an easy thing, for an angel or demon to fly any distance on a mortal plane. Beyond the physical exertion of it, there is also the question of preventing anyone from noticing, unless the relevant administration cosigns a reveal. Without the necessary paperwork, however, the cost doubles, requiring the expenditure of power as one travels to shroud the spectacle. The human mind perceives this as cloud, or fog as the entity descends to earth, but in truth it is nothing so commonplace; it is, in fact, a painfully prolonged miracle, and sustaining it for any length of time saps vital energy, vital strength.

Aziraphale despised both process and paperwork, and, as a result, had not flown in centuries. Unfortunately, tonight his need of speed was very great indeed, and after a few moments of trying to come up with an alternative on the steps of Kensington Palace, he had admitted to himself that fly he must.

The concession had posed a bit of a problem. He could not have his wings out the entire length of the way to France from London, not when he had to keep a reserve of power in case of crisis. Neither could he risk attracting the stray attention of someone in the city, if his precautions failed.

Inspiration, however, had struck a moment later, and, reasoning that the Prince had given his implicit blessing to drastic measures, he had stolen – well, borrowed – one of the royal carriage’s horses, gifting him with unnatural speed and strength in the same breath. Sparks had rained from the powerful hooves as they wheeled from the queue of carriages and galloped southeast together, Aziraphale manifesting a saddle underneath him as they went, and it had not been long before the streets of London dwindled away, fading into the rolling chalk hills of the Kent Downs.

Together they had come as far as Dover Beach, but, here, at the foot of those cliffs that shone pale as his own hide, the fine white gelding could go no farther. Dismounting, Aziraphale had stroked the heaving and sodden chest, soothing him, praising him, telling him that he had done quite well; and, once the horse’s breathing had steadied, he had set the path back to London into his weary animal mind, a pattern mirroring the yearly migration of birds, and turned away. Behind him, obstinately, the horse had stamped his foot and stayed, apparently not willing to leave him alone just yet, for which the angel was quietly grateful.

Now he stood at the very edge of the dark water, calculating the distance to the far-distant shoreline, and trying to determine how many the scant hours remained until dawn. A swimmer would arrive too late, by his calculations, and so would a sailor. Thank goodness, he could be faster than both. If he hurried.

Working quickly, he slid out of the beautiful powder blue jacket and let it fall to the sand. The snowy cravat followed, and so did the waistcoat. The undershirt, however, he kept, partially unbuttoning it and allowing it to hang around his waist, secured by his trousers.

Then, with no one to see but the horse, the Guardian of the Eastern Gate stood on the beach, torso bare and already gleaming with the spray of the ocean, and let his wings unfold under the black satin sky.

A minute later, there was only the horse.

Over the cliffs of Dover, the inexorable fog came rolling in.

*

As Aziraphale had anticipated, it was not particularly pleasant to fly again. He had not done anything so strenuous in a long time, and it took a moment for the muscle memory to come back to him, the vast rocking pulls, like the ache of rowing. Concentrating on finding a rhythm, he strove to ignore the terror that yet pulsed through him, although he had to admit that maintaining his control had never been more difficult. The conversations from the last few hours were still echoing in his ears.

– _A demon?_

– _Don’t be ridiculous. It’s because his hair is scarlet._

Gritting his teeth, Aziraphale focused on the air, clean and cold in his pristine white wings, and tried not to think about whether he deserved them.

He had always believed that Heaven was a higher power. Well, that much did not even need to be said; it was, obviously, supposed to be the very highest. But, in calling it _higher,_ Aziraphale thought angrily, one could just as easily substitute _aloof._ Angels did not go out in the trenches of men and fight their wars, did not protect their children or kill monsters for them. Instead, they performed small blessings, and thwarted small wiles, and gave people the tools to make their own decisions.

Of course, he longed for more agency than that. He always had. Real achievements, like those beautiful stories of narrow escapes and miraculous rescues, had always filled him with euphoria, had set hymns on his tongue as he set the papers aside or put the kettle on. But he had not revolted against the arbitrary limits that kept him from doing such things himself. He had been content with inertia, satisfied with beautiful ideals that asked no action of him. He had been a complacent and complicit fool.

Now he was feeling the sting of his inaction, especially as he began to see how the course of history had been changed by someone whose wings were far less perfect than his own. Aziraphale could hardly bear it, but the scope of his ignorance was becoming clearer by the minute. Every incident that he had kept close to his heart – each tale of survivors, saved from burning cities and perilous waters – had not been a direct intervention by God at all.

The truth was less noble, and more humbling, and yet more wonderful too.

It had been Crowley, all along.

Crowley, struggling to construct a raft. Crowley, sneaking into a human prison. Crowley the incorrigible, indefatigable weed, keeping his secrets over the long, long years, doodling silent confessionals in wine.

He had never said a word about it, and Aziraphale, God help him, had never dreamed that there was anything to tell.

Had he?

– _I am sorry that you love him. It must bring you a world of unhappiness._

– _Thank you, Your Highness. But I don’t._

He flew on. He was becoming aware, albeit slowly, that his body hurt all over. Forgotten muscles strained in his back and wings, and there was a sharp pain under his breastbone, like a knife wound, that he was dimly beginning to understand but could do nothing about. Well, he could not think about that right now anyway. He needed to concentrate. He was dangerously short on time.

Below him, from what he could see, the Channel was dark under starlight. He could not tell how much longer it took before it finally stuttered into a coastline, and, barely visible from this altitude, the signs of civilization that he had been looking for: a seawall, a tiny city, a lighthouse. It was this last that saved him, piercing the onrushing bank of cloud, drawing him in the same way that it had guided many storm-tossed vessels into a safe harbor, and in the hour before dawn Aziraphale lit at last on the platform of the Tour du Guet, that ancient pillar of Calais.

He took a moment to breathe in. Fog rolled in alongside him, thick and roiling from the black sea, and then past, flooding the shadowed streets. Even the walls of the tower above him, rising dark and baleful over the little port city, could not be seen for a moment. And then it was as though the sea exhaled with him; the white tendrils of cloud blew away as he folded his wings, letting them shiver out of the world, and gingerly slid his arms back into the sleeves of his shirt.

The city was quiet. The angel took stock of it, pacing the platform, trying to figure out where he was about to be needed. Out towards the ocean, he could see the great pincers of the Calais breakwater, the stony seawall guarding the mouth of the harbor like claws. Within the shelter of their harbor were the softly rocking shapes of boats, battened down with oilskin tarps and nestled into the arms of the rotting quays. Despite the time, myriad shadows were already moving among them, indicating a surprising number of people attending to the ropes and cargo.

Observing them, Aziraphale’s eyes narrowed. At this ungodly hour, he would have thought that the shoreline would be the sole dominion of fishmongers and divers. Tonight it seemed as though half the city was awake.

He allowed his eyes drift out of focus to look for human auras, as he had done many times before, and discovered that his suspicion had been merited. A large company of French soldiers, shining bright with their scarlet purpose, were divided between the seawall and the harbor. Those in Calais proper were all disguised, of course, bent over tangled fishing nets or immersed in the dregs of a bottle, costumed to divert suspicion. Those on the wall had tried to conceal themselves too, although with less success; now that the angel knew what to look for, his eyes could pick out the brass of a cannonade, and the bristle of bayonets among the rocks.

Nor were they alone, he realized with sudden shock. Silhouetted against the seawall was another aura, inhuman and discolored. There was a demon keeping watch as well.

Aziraphale considered this development for a moment. It would make things a bit more complicated, but it changed nothing.

Silently he went down the stairs of the lighthouse and out towards the mouth of the harbor, looking for a narrow inlet where he could keep watch. With no little apprehension, as he went, he used the same miracle he had employed in Soho-square, once, to listen to rumors of the Pimpernel (had that really been only weeks ago? It felt like an age of the earth). At his command, the sea-air stirred into cold eddies and flowed inland, over salt and stone, carrying him wisps of conversation.

“– which one?”

“It will be a skiff,” said a grating voice, so malevolent as to be inhuman. “A fishing skiff. One with a white keel.”

A pause, and then the first voice said, skeptically, “Are you sure?”

“No,” said that awful voice. “Only suspicious. There will be a great deal of paperwork before I am certain.”

“But no one could cross the Channel safely in a tiny boat like that.”

“Yes,” hissed the second speaker. “Yes, it would require something like a miracle to get away.” A soft laugh, as if at something only he found amusing. “Fortunately, there are precautions that we can take to prevent such a thing.”

“Are you going to kill him?” said the other, disapprovingly. “I think Chauvelin would take issue with that, Hastur. He requested a session with this one personally. Wants his pound of flesh, you know.”

“He is a fool. What happens to the body is temporary,” the demon said quietly. “After that there is nothing but time.”

Aziraphale had to let the miracle dissipate, after that. He had come too close, too blessedly close, to calling down the wrath of God and smiting Hastur right there against the stone. It would have launched a second holy war rather ahead of schedule, he told himself firmly, and more importantly, it would not have achieved a thing to save –

There was a figure in black coming down from the city.

It was moving quickly, stumbling a little on the uneven ground. The legs were not visible, which was fortunate, the angel thought, for anyone who saw the sway of a pair of distinctly snakelike hips would recognize them on sight. The shape of the person, however, was disguised with a massive black cape, with the hood drawn up and over his hair.

At this distance it was not possible to see if he had scarlet curls, or yellow eyes, or any other distinguishing feature. It might not have been Crowley at all. It might have been anyone; and yet, somehow, watching him, the angel felt the knife of certainty lodge itself more firmly under his ribs.

Ignorant of his voyeur, the Scarlet Pimpernel went out towards the water, picking his way slow across the crowded quays. Aziraphale tensed for action, but none of the soldiers onshore moved to accost him; it looked as though they did not even see him, which made no sense. How could they turn a blind eye to this newcomer, when the entire Continent wanted his head?

And then, suddenly, he felt it, and understood. Even at this distance, as he watched, a quiet susurration of power was trying to divert his attention, hissing that there was nothing to see, nothing at all unusual about this person, thank you very much, no one need pay him any mind. It was, in fact, the same miracle that he himself had used at Carlton House to sneak up the staircase and view the private library, except that someone who was not an angel was mimicking it now for quite a different purpose. The juxtaposition made him flush even in the dark.

Without breaking his stride, the figure went right past the soldiers, not even deigning to look down where they were crouched or sprawled near the waterway, and out to one of the quays. A white skiff was tethered there, among its darker peers, and he took up its oars and settled himself into the boat. It rocked violently under the weight, once, like a spooked horse, and then effortlessly slipped anchor and went gliding out towards the open water. Its helmsman kept his head bent low, and began to row.

Even then, there was no answering stir of movement on the seawall, or among any of the disguised soldiers on shore. The supernatural diversion had worked.

For the first time, the angel wondered if he had overreacted, flying through the night as he had. With such protection, this little boat could easily slip past the seawall and out into the Channel without a single divine intervention.

Of course, it was always possible that Hastur could sense the same occult concealment that the angel could, that tiny electric flicker, a whisper on the air – in which case he might simply be biding his time, and any moment now he might –

The cannonade fired.

It was a ludicrous shot. Aziraphale could see that at once. The iron could clear about a thousand yards, so the harbor was just barely in range, but the trajectory was all wrong; the confines of seawall did not allow the targeting of something directly inland. Moreover, the whispers about the Scarlet Pimpernel and his magical gifts had all been true: Crowley really could tear shackles like paper and change bullets to water, if he so chose. The missile posed no danger at all.

At least, that was what he told himself in the instant before the ball changed course, its arc blazing along the length of the seawall and then abruptly streaking landward, nearly too fast to see. It seemed to be guided by some infernal power, fueled by a spitting hatred, and the person in the boat stopped rowing, and lifted his hooded head sharply, as if scenting something –

There was not time to protect him. It was too fast.

The impact sent up a fountain of wood.

The angel could not have breathed if his life depended on it, so it was, on the whole, rather fortunate that it didn’t. His ears were ringing. At some point he had left his hiding spot, although he didn’t remember making the decision to, and was moving dizzily towards the water. Fortunately, no one noticed him, as there was a roar of activity all along the seawall; the soldiers were also moving about, shaking hands, congratulating each other, damn them, oh, God, no, _no_ –

Then the air cleared a little, and everyone present went silent, for all saw the same thing: among the waves and the fragments of the skiff, there floundered a dark figure, trying to drag itself back to shore.

It was not a decision as much as a reflex. Aziraphale reached out, in the same way that he had felt Crowley do in Paris, and brushed his metaphysical fingertips against the fabric of the fourth dimension. He had never done such a thing before – had not even guessed that it was possible, ten days ago – but, as it turned out, fear for another person’s life made the violation of Time the easiest thing in the world.

He took it in his grasp, shocked at his own daring, and wrenched it askew with all the strength he could muster.

The harbor froze. The Scarlet Pimpernel, coming out of the water, staggered with the surprise of it, looking without comprehension at the unmasked soldiers lunging towards him, their drawn steel, the unseeing fury on their faces as they looked past him. It took his wild yellow eyes a minute to find Aziraphale, waiting for him by the quay, and when their gazes met he stumbled and fell, soaking himself anew.

The angel looked away. He could give that much, at least; a few extra moments to grasp at composure, to regain the illusion of dignity. Silently, although he was beginning to sweat with the unfamiliar effort, he held everything fast as the figure paused on the shoreline, taking his time, drying his clothes, shucking the tattered cape.

And then Crowley came forward, limping a little, and the angel looked back at him.

Neither said anything for a moment. The demon was keeping his face carefully blank, with limited success. Apprehension, resignation, and some softer thing that was blinding in its vulnerability flickered just under the surface.

Aziraphale found that he could not look too closely at this last, however. Not just yet.

He said, “Walk with me.”

*

He kept a strong grip on Time as they got well away from the harbor. Up through alleys, up past the Tour du Guet, they wound their weary way until the ocean was barely visible, lying behind them in glittering shards between the houses. Beside him, Crowley said nothing, as guarded as if he were hiding a rotting injury, cowering away from the surgeon’s knife.

Well, perhaps it would be a merciful cut. Aziraphale did not know much about human medicine, but he did know that sometimes you had to slit a wound open, if only to let the light in. And five thousand years was probably long enough to let a secret fester.

He tilted his face towards the paling horizon and said, conversationally, “Hastur suspects you of being the Scarlet Pimpernel.”

The demon’s step faltered for just a moment. Still he said nothing.

“You can understand the confusion,” the angel observed, face still lifted towards the dawn. “France is his pet project. You can’t keep turning up like this. Someone could easily draw the wrong conclusions.”

He made the mistake of glancing sideways, and regretted it instantly, for Crowley had nothing to shield his eyes, and the intensity of that yellow stare in the dark was dizzying. He could not meet it for long. Looking away again, he cleared his throat and went on.

“Have they ever suspected you before?”

“Before?” the demon said, and his voice was a croak, as though he had not spoken in days.

“Yes, Crowley, before,” said Aziraphale, rather tersely. “There have been other Scarlet Pimpernels, have there not? Over the course of the last five and a half thousand years?”

They walked on in silence for a while. Aziraphale tried to focus on anything but those eyes, blazing at him in the periphery of his vision, and settled for watching the sky again. At this hour, it was an unending swath of cobalt blue, not unlike a bolt of cloth ready for the tailor; a strangely apt metaphor, he thought, since the hue was as unchanging as if it really had been dyed. Impervious to the creeping threat of sunrise, the color was a testament to his efforts to hold the whole firmament fast on another dimension – even though the fabric was, even now, pulling and pulling against him.

If he was being honest with himself, it was beginning to hurt.

“How long have you known?” said Crowley.

It took Aziraphale a moment to register the question. “Not long,” he admitted, as he wiped a trickle of salt from his brow. “I thought it was,” and then he cut himself off, swallowing hard. He couldn't say God, not to Crowley, for reasons that were not entirely clear to him. “Heaven.”

“Just so I'm clear,” said Crowley bitterly. “This would be the Heaven that tries to drown children and turns a blind eye to the sack of cities? That Heaven?”

_Tries to._

Aziraphale’s throat constricted cruelly. Although the words were as sharp as glass, he managed to say them, spitting out the shattered fragments of a talisman that he had held onto for many years. “Crowley – oh, Crowley – those children that survived the Flood – and Constantinople –”

“ _Don’t,_ ” the demon hissed, stopping mid-stride.

Aziraphale mirrored him, and they stood face-to-face in the empty street. The angel’s baffled corporation was beginning to sweat profusely now. Time was bucking against his grip more forcefully, and the struggle to keep it still was making him feel a bit lightheaded – nearly as lightheaded as the heat of those serpentine eyes, still fixed on his own.

He tried to focus on the simple mechanics of keeping his body upright. It would be horribly embarrassing, he told himself sternly, if he fainted. In Paris, Crowley had done this effortlessly, had in fact held the world still long enough for him to flee the heart of the city. He could last a little longer.

“What will you do?” he heard himself say.

Crowley stared back at him. He looked as though he had expected Aziraphale to say something else entirely, and didn’t know how to react now that the accusation had not been spoken. “I don’t know,” he said. “I need to lay low for a while, I expect. Don’t want anyone to, ah,” and he coughed a little, “draw the wrong conclusions. Might hole up somewhere, maybe. Nap for a century.”

“A century,” Aziraphale repeated weakly.

“Yeah, y’know. Pretend I was out for the whole mess.”

Through the rising mist, a single detail sharpened into perfect clarity: the fact that the demon’s hair, which he had only seen coiffed and perfect for the last thousand years or so, lay in a wet garnet coil down one shoulder. He had the unprecedented impulse to set his mouth on it, before he did not see it again for a hundred years, or possibly longer. “An entire _century_ – and if that doesn’t work?”

“Well,” said Crowley, and he looked away, mouth set in a grim line. “Then I might ask you for a favor, the next time we meet.”

“Yes, of course,” said Aziraphale at once. “Whatever you need.”

This elicited a frown. “Don’t say that yet,” the demon muttered. “You don’t know what it might be.”

Aziraphale was not sure what Crowley could ask him for, now, that he would refuse, but he did not offer a contradiction. This might have been taken for an unusual display of tact, if not for the fact that he also staggered forward in the same moment. He might have even fallen, if the demon had not lunged to steady him.

“Angel, are you–?”

“Crowley,” the angel burst out in anguish, looking up at him. “ _Why?_ ”

It was a single, inadequate word, distilled from the agonies that had tormented him over the last several hours – _why didn’t you tell me your secret? Why didn’t I guess it? Why did you kiss me?_ _Why is th_ _at_ _memory so painful?_ _Why does the Plan have to be_ _so bloody_ _ineffable,_ _w_ _hy does suffering have to happen_ _at all_ _?_ – but it did not quite come out right, and he flinched away from the sound of it. It sounded almost cruel, as if he were asking something else: why would a demon ever try to achieve something good in the world? Why would he care?

But Crowley did not seem as though he had been offended. He only looked, suddenly, very tired, as if he had understood the intended meaning. Turning his head, he looked out towards the harbor, where the dark waters of the Channel had been stilled, the waves arrayed like the folds of a fan.

“I don’t know, angel,” he said at last. “I think that perhaps she just forgets.”

“What?” Aziraphale whispered, watching him, and when there was no response he repeated the pronoun with wonder. “ ‘She’ –?”

Crowley roused himself, gave himself a little shake. Turning back to face him, he opened his mouth – and then it was as if there was also a word he could not say, either.

“Madame Guillotine.” It was not the answer he had originally meant to give, that much was clear. “Not everyone she condemns is rotten all the way through, you know. Some of them are just...” and the demon made a helpless gesture and was silent.

It was not a lie, exactly, Aziraphale thought, but then, metaphors were not exactly lies; and so, even though he longed to know whether Crowley had meant to say _she_ or _She_ , he let it pass.

They stood looking at each other for a long minute, and then the demon touched his fingertips to the hair at Aziraphale’s temples, wet and curling with sweat by now, his human body baffled by the agony of holding Time captive. “I must go,” he murmured. “You never should have tried to hold it so long.”

The angel reached for him blindly. Despite his words, the Scarlet Pimpernel stepped into the circle of his arms at once, nosing into his throat, as if he had been expecting the invitation; and, holding him, Aziraphale shook all over, chilled through for the first time in his immortal life. He did not understand it for a moment, but then it dawned on him: he was more afraid than ever.

“Be careful, my dear,” he whispered, into the damp cravat. “Be safe. If something – happened – ”

Crowley tilted his chin up with a finger and studied him again. “I’m very wily, you know,” he said. “I’ll be all right.” Then he paused, long enough to produce a somewhat knotted handkerchief, with which he attempted to dry the angel’s eyes. This was disconcerting. Aziraphale had not even realized that he was weeping.

“You’re not that wily,” he said thickly, under these awkward ministrations. “Not if Hastur and the Prince both suspect you.”

“Wait – the _Prince?_ ” said Crowley in real surprise, and the attentive hand jerked backwards; Aziraphale only just managed to save the handkerchief from falling.

“You needn’t worry, I think. He discovered my secret too, but, well.” He laughed a little, a wet and rueful sound, as he twisted the cloth in his hands. “Supposedly he’s very good at keeping them.”

“ _Your_ secret?” It was a tone of voice that strove for mocking, but could not conceal the note of concern. “My word. Is this another one of those agendas you may or may not be willing to disclose?”

The reference might have hurt, but the angel was somewhere beyond the pain now: numb, nauseous, reeling from the night’s revelations. “He said that he was sorry that I – that I cared for you, as much as I do.” Looking up into Crowley’s eyes, he discovered that he was also beginning to shake more violently, a tremor that he could not seem to get under control. “He thought it must bring me a world of unhappiness.”

Crowley stared at him. A muscle moved in his jaw, but he said nothing; and Aziraphale too was silent for a long moment, meeting his gaze. Yet it seemed that they understood one another, as they had not, not properly, since the world began.

“Not too much unhappiness, I hope,” the demon said at last, sounding hoarse.

“No,” Aziraphale whispered. “No. Not too much.”

Hesitantly, as if fearing a rebuff, the demon drew closer to him and kissed him for the second time. Closing his eyes, the angel pressed himself against that slender chest and tried to be grateful for it, stolen moment that it was; but the taste of it was bitter, indeed literally so. Against Crowley’s, his lips were stinging, for this time the demon’s mouth was not sweet, but as briny and melancholy as an ocean, or perhaps tears.

Unbidden, the thought rose that he had prophesied at Carlton House after all. He trusted a demon, and in a strange way, it had in fact brought him grief.

They were incredibly lucky, he told himself sternly. Crowley was alive, and would soon be far from here, and anyway how many lovers had wished for exactly this? To stop Time, the longer to be with someone?

But it was hard to feel fortunate right now. He had only just realized that Crowley belonged here, in his arms, and that was about to be taken from him for at least a century, and possibly longer, if things went badly. There was no guarantee, yet, that the Scarlet Pimpernel was safe. Hastur might have recognized him. The wrath of Hell might ascend and take him permanently. Aziraphale might have saved him once, this morning, but he was still very much in danger.

He might yet be lost.

At this thought, he made himself let Crowley go, although it took all of his remaining strength to step away. The demon was breathing quickly, his pulse a visible butterfly in the hollow of his jaw, but as his eyes regained their focus, he seemed to recognize the resolve in the angel’s face. He nodded, and pulled himself together.

“Right,” he said. “All right,” though he rubbed at his mouth with fingers that trembled. On seeing that, Aziraphale wanted nothing more than to reach for him again.

But they did not have time.

He held out his hand.

“Your handkerchief,” he said, in a voice that broke a little on the final syllable. Well, it could not be helped. He was at the very limits of his power.

Crowley looked back at him for one moment longer, and then said, “Keep it,” and turned away.

Behind him, the angel held the knotted fabric tightly against his chest and let him go.

*

When Crowley was out of sight, he released Time as carefully as he could. It was lunging out of his grasp so powerfully that he was afraid it might tear, but as he released it, bit by bit, he felt it flex and move into the normal shape, an undulating fourth dimension that spun the world forward. All at once the eddies of wind stirred up again, icy on those places where he was wet with sweat, and ripe with the scent of the sea.

A minute later, down by the water, he heard an uproar of thwarted fury, audible even over the ringing in his ears.

Well, he couldn’t worry about that now. He was preoccupied with the more immediate task of not suffocating. Within his chest, his corporation’s lungs were burning, shrieking with the horror of a night that had demanded so much celestial exertion, and he stumbled backward in the street until he felt a building firm against his back, trying to breathe deeply enough to convince his body that it wasn’t dying. Once he vomited, but only once, and in doing so he was careful to lean forward and spare himself aspiration. Then he let himself slide down until he was sitting in the filthy gutter. Distantly, he observed that his trousers might never have been powder blue at all.

When his tissues were finally convinced that he was, in fact, receiving oxygen, he closed his eyes.

He could still hear the clamor down by the shoreline: shouting, cursing, the rage over another Pimpernel escape. But he did not care much about that, and, as he drifted, his consciousness filtered out the sounds of fury, reaching for the music of a waking Calais instead. From here, he could hear the steady bellows of the waves resuming, and shutters opening, and threading through it all was a sound like a fife, a high clear melody that was barely audible but there nonetheless, something sweet and soft and full of joy.

Birds, he realized. Somewhere he could hear birds, at least two of them, performing a call-and-response chorus that he could not quite identify. He thought that they might be either larks or nightingales, not that it really mattered. Still, it was soothing to listen to them. Whatever they were, they were singing their hearts out.

He inhaled, and exhaled, and inhaled again, and when he opened his eyes again it was dawn.

It was dawn, and there was a carriage.

It was drawn up to the door of one of the finer houses in Calais, small but elegant, its door ajar at the far end of the street. By the railing, a footman stood waiting for his master, the horses already harnessed and ready behind him. His comport spoke of an urgent errand, some vital business out of town, for which their departure could not delay past dawn.

Over the course of the next ten minutes, however, and to everyone's great surprise, the master would discover that he had come down with a head cold and would not need the carriage after all, and, after being offered a very reasonable sum of money, the footman would discover that he was perfectly willing to take a different gentleman inland in his place.

Feeling a little disconcerted by the rapid turn of events, the young man rapped on the door of the coach.

“Where to, monsieur?” he said, poking his head in.

“Paris,” Aziraphale rasped, from where he was already seated. “Thank you.”

The footman nodded, and clucked to the horses as he pulled himself into the driver's seat, and they leaped forward and on into the soft blue morning.

Inside the carriage, steeped in shadow, his passenger sat in silence, gazing at down the object that he held in his lap. An outsider, observing him, would not have understood its significance: it was only a small, knotted piece of periwinkle fabric, still damp with either water or tears. The former might have seemed more likely, since the person holding it did not look as though he were grieving. Instead, his face was resolute, as if he had thought long and hard about some difficult choice, and come at last to a decision.

Once he was certain that they had left the port of Calais, he untied the handkerchief.

An object fell into his palm. The fabric had appeared so tortured, it seemed, because it had been twisted to conceal a small golden ring, stamped with the seal of a five-petaled flower.

Aziraphale felt his lips tremble, a little. Briefly, he held the cool insignia against his mouth, not unlike the way that a pious woman might set her lips against a crucifix: a gesture akin to prayer. Then he folded the cloth again and slipped it inside his shirt, the secret of it laid flat against his faux human heart, and set the shining ring upon his smallest finger.

It fit.

 _The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel,_ he thought, looking down at it. It really wasn’t a bad phrase, all things considered.

After examining his hand in silence for a while, he lifted it at last to open the blinds of the coach, letting in the light of the sunrise. There was no point in sitting in darkness, after all, not when all of the evidence suggested that it was going to be a particularly beautiful day. He might as well take strength and solace from the dawn, and rest while he still could, for very soon he would not have the leisure for it.

He had a great deal of work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fourth chapter concludes The Pimpernel (although, as usual, blessings to anyone who wants to expand on this universe). 
> 
> The fifth chapter that will follow on 5/1/20 is a small author's note. If you don't like that kind of thing, no need to return / proceed.
> 
> It has been fun. Thank you all for coming along with this wild AU; thank you SO MUCH for the lovely comments (each one wins my undying affection; they are cherished esp. during a pandemic that has caused my email-checking habits to become somewhat unhealthy lol); and thank you to drawlight, for everything.


	5. CD case & insert

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 30th anniversary to Good Omens, a book that has had part of my heart for over fifteen years! *throws confetti* Love never dies!
> 
> And now I'm going to write a short author's note / cd insert mostly about a musical instead. Honestly that's pretty on brand for me haha

“ _Can I run to you? Are you true to me?”_

Even though it's gonna make me sound like an old person, I will confess: I love physical CD cases. I do. I will mayyybe concede that their contents are a bit gratuitous (.... very much like this fifth chapter..... shhhh). But even so, I just really like the little glimpses they provide into the creation of beloved albums, those extra images and liner notes for a medium that is now a thing of the past. And I think I should start by saying that, although I've gotten rid of many of mine over the years, my current collection does actually include the one for that peerless work, that prince of theater, that perfect paradigm of the '90s musical: The Scarlet Pimpernel.

“ _Don't be afraid; it's only love...”_

In case it hasn't been made abundantly clear.... I love this show??? It is such a work of beauty (*raps on mic* furthermore Douglas Sills will forever be my personal Percy Blakeney thank you for your time) and tbh so is its CD case. I'm serious. The insert has marvelous art (as bastardized above... I am extremely embarrassed and don't want to talk about it though. listen I was working on this fic for a long time); production notes and photos; and of course, all of the lyrics printed, which objectively include some of the most GOmensy lines of any musical ever. Some of them are quoted here for your pleasure.

“ _That Heaven I'd forgotten eases through... In you.”_

_(^^^ HELLO????)_

So yeah. Given my appreciation for the two original canons, I was obviously going to jump at the chance to write this. Again, I want to be super clear that I do NOT deserve credit for the idea. Many weeks ago now, drawlight mentioned that he wanted to see more GO fic with the concept of Crowley as the Scarlet Pimpernel. My reaction was pretty much "oh please oh please may I write this for you," and he was EXTREMELY gracious and let me steal the plot seed that would consume me for about two months -- yes, actually two months! I was trying to figure out when I had started this beast (OK yes, I know that it's not that long, but it's long for me! Also it got very plotty and demanded at least one hefty rewrite!) and found a series of messages from 2/23/20 that made me laugh. _I missed at least one round of trivia tonight in the bathroom typing a Pimpernel excerpt frantically,_ I wrote. Draw messaged back that he did not want to ruin my trivia.... but also _yessss._ (By the way, he and racketghost have been darlings over the course of this project and I adore them with my whole heart.)

“ _Yes, it's into the fire we fly, and the Devil will burn!”_

To be fair to us both, it was a brilliant and addictive idea (nor are we [the](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIaWe-VAOHc) [first](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19791604) [two](https://hollow-head.tumblr.com/post/188251320624/x-listen-i-like-the-scarlet-pimpernel-ok) [people](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21063689/chapters/50108126) to think of the marriage, and I hope like hell, not the last either). The story just lends itself so easily to Good Omens. Marguerite is a disillusioned idealist who can't see the man she loves for who he really is. Her [ineffable*cough*] husband Percy does his best to conceal his true noble self from her (in the very first literary manifestation of the secret identity trope, may I add!). So, okay. If that's not an Aziraphale / Crowley parallel ripe on the vine, I don't know what is. And of course, a few other characters appear here as well.... the Prince is more intuitive, closer to his book self, if I remember correctly.... Chauvelin is diminished... and the League is not a company of men after all, but... well. You know what I tried to do. And ofc there are several nods to those wonderful lyrics, embedded throughout (dear fans of the musical, I would love to know how many you found. there are A Lot. Like. A lot a lot).

“ _We were cut from the same surly star: like two jewels in the sky sharing fire....”_

But I am very nearly coming to the point of all of this. As I was writing this and immersing myself over the course of the last several weeks, I discovered that the wonderful CD and its insert are full of BTS stories that I instantly and desperately wanted to share with the fandom (hence me deciding to write these notes, too, and make my own lil gratuitous cd insert). Most specifically, what I really wanted to tell y'all was that Nan Knighton, lyricist, has some particularly wonderful memories inked in her pages. I'll conclude with an excerpt of her own closing remarks, written about the recording of the cast album. In her own words:

“ _Doug and I put on our coats to walk out into the cold November night. Frank and the guys will work later into the night, and for the next few weeks, comping, mixing, editing. I will write the liner notes for the album. And the Scarlet Pimpernel? He waves goodbye on the street and heads home, to **Soho**...”_

Thanks for reading, friends. As always, it’s an honor.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [French Revolution Aziraphale](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24067096) by [everybody_lives](https://archiveofourown.org/users/everybody_lives/pseuds/everybody_lives)
  * [French Revolution Crowley](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24109846) by [everybody_lives](https://archiveofourown.org/users/everybody_lives/pseuds/everybody_lives)




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